


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2008 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/constantinople01deam 


"Ex Libus 
Drank Pisker Picard 





CONSTANTINOPLE 











The Mihrab of the Mosque of Roustem Pasha, 
Showing Persian Tiles 





SEONSTANTINOPLE. 


BY 
EDMONDO DE AMICIS, 
AuTHOR oF “‘ HoLLanp,” ‘‘SpaIn AND THE SPANIARDS,” ETC. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE FIFTEENTH ITALIAN EDITION BY 


MARIA HORNOR LANSDALE. 


ILLUSTRATED. 


INe TWO VOLUMES: 


Vota 


THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS 
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO. 
PHILADELPHIA 





COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY 
HENRY T. COATES & CO. 








1p 
CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
PEE AUERI VAT aos 3 ote ase © 6 = 25 4) 6 se 7 
FIvE Hours LATER... . +--+ se eee eee 33 
Mae BRIDGE % «2902 6 2 eve CMe Ce ON 43 
SPANO UT ien ets aise oe aes aie ow seine, te ee enon Ws 59 
ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN........... 85 
Moe GRWAT BAZAR “2-3 S602 2 coy ence Ge ose 121 
LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. ... 2.55. -5564-s 159 
SSO PACs cds iclus ol Taya's ine, spesie eres betel ote mts 247 
DOUMABAGHCHEM (sos. a. eis. ows “eu sas 279 





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


VOLUME I. 


Photogravures by W. H. GILBo. 





PAGE 
THE MIHRAB OF THE MosQuE OF RousTEM PASHA, SHOW- 

ING PERSIAN TIKES. ......-. . = - - Brontismece. 
Mosques oF SULTAN AHMED AND ST. SOPHIA ..... 24 
Wirwaok PERA AND G:ALATA . .-. «5 «© © 0 5 6 «© «6 29 
IXNGDEN TIE OUNIAIN thus iss ss *' le iis 2) aa) ol ier eeEOO, 
BRIDGMTOMIGEATIATA, = +) Ses 3 4 oe) os cde ss es ee 4D 
FountTAIN OF CouRT OF THE MosquE OF AHMED... .. 69 
Burnt COLUMN OF CONSTANTINE ........-.. 7 
“Noni. CiokGo WW G iis Ol ouoaowep loa ts ofS cee mn ll) 
PANORAMA OF THE ARSENAL AND GOLDEN Horn .. . 105 
DAI SEE LR ace eiwer a os ©: ectocm ca emi we ue eee oil 


View or SrampBut, Mosque oF VALIDEH, AND Bripce. 161 


SERPENTINE COLUMN OF DELPHI ........... 167 
CROUPZOR SW OGS ire ois erst tf Ao t coeucnettise eles tee pean olen) 
LYPES ON LURKISH (SOLDIERS <2 «+ 6 «© «© wos wll So 
AG URKISH: ORRICUATHG cli se & een el ee | Seem renO0) 
TURBEH OF SULTAN Setim II. in St.SopH1a ..... 216 
INTERIOR OF MosQuE oF AHMED .......... . 227 


ENTRANCE AND TOWER OF SERASKER ........ . 248 


6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


ENTRANCE ‘TO; ST. SOPHIA. 15.01 feloas co ceieieinte o eueoueoies 249 
EOUNTAIN OF -AHMED . % 2) 2 >o:ccctrs: s) ou outs acute canes 251 
MOosQqur OF St) SOPHTA (.- ) sue lees enen «rah Slane pe go 
INTERIOR OF THE MosQuE OF St. SOPHIA ....... 260 
Frrst COLUMNS ERECTED IN St.SOPHIA ..... site) 3 e205 
Pauacre or DomMABAGHCHEH . =... 5 <5 ©) Gee 281 


PALACE OF THE SULTAN ON THE BOSPHORUS. ..... 296 


THE ARRIVAL. 





THE ARRIVAL. 


THE arrival at Constantinople made such an over- 
powering impression upon me as to almost efface 
what I had seen during the previous ten days’ trip 
from the Straits of Messina to the mouth of the 
Bosphorus. The Ionian Sea, blue and unruffled as 
a lake; the distant mountains of Morea, tinged with 
rose color in the early morning light; the archi- 
pelago, gilded with the rays of the setting sun; the 
ruins of Athens; the Gulf of Salonika, Lemnos, 
Tenedos, the Dardanelles, and a crowd of persons and 
events which had caused me infinite amusement 
during the voyage,—faded into such indistinct and 
shadowy outlines at the first sight of the Golden 
Horn that were I now to undertake a description of 
them it would be an effort rather of imagination than 
of memory; and so, in order to impart something 
of life and warmth to the opening pages of my book, 
I shall omit all preliminaries and begin with the last 
evening of the voyage at the precise moment when, 
in the middle of the Sea of Marmora, the captain 
came up to my friend Yunk and me, and, laying his 


two hands on our shoulders, said, in his pure Palerman 
9 


10 THE ARRIVAL. 


accent, ‘‘Gentlemen, to-morrow at daybreak we 
shall see the first minarets of Stambul.” 

Ah! you smile, my good reader, you who have 
plenty of money and are tired of spending it—who, 
when a year or so ago the fancy seized you to go to 
Constantinople in twenty-four hours, with your purse 
well lined and your. trunks packed, set forth as 
calmly as if it were a trip to the country, uncertain 
up to the last moment whether, after all, it might not 
pay better to take the train for Baden-Baden instead. 
If the captain had said to you, ‘To-morrow morn- 
ing we shall see Stambul,” you would probably have 
answered, quite calmly, ‘Indeed? I am very glad 
to hear it.” But suppose, instead, you had brooded 
over the idea for ten years; had passed many a 
winter’s evening mournfully studying the map of the 
Kast; had fired your imagination by reading hun- 
dreds of books on the subject; had travelled over 
one-half of Europe merely to eonsole yourself for 
not being able to see the other half; had remained 
nailed to your desk for a whole year with this sole 
object in view; had made a thousand petty sacri- 
fices and calculations without end; had erected whole 
rows of castles in the air, and fought many a stiff 
battle with those of your own household ; and finally 
had passed nine sleepless nights at sea haunted by 
this intoxicating vision, and so blissfully happy as to 
have a twinge of something like remorse at the 


thought of all your loved ones left behind ;—then 


THE ARRIVAL. 11 


you would have some idea of the real meaning of 
those words: ‘ To-morrow at daybreak we shall see 
the first minarets of Stambul ;” and instead of reply- 
ing phlegmatically, “I am glad to hear it,” you 
would have given a great thump on the bulkhead, 
as I did. 

One great source of satisfaction to my friend and 
myself was our profound conviction that, boundless 
as our expectations might be, they could not pos- 
sibly be foiled. About Constantinople there is no 
uncertainty, and the most pessimistic traveller feels 
that there, at least, he is safe, since no one has ever 
been disappointed ; and this, moreover, has nothing 
to do with the charm of its great associations or the 
fashion of admiring what every one else does. It 
has a beauty of its own, at once overmastering and 
triumphant, before which poets, archeologists, am- 
bassadors, and merchants, the princess and the 
sailor, people of the North and of the South, one 
and all, break forth into loud exclamations of aston- 
ishment. In the opinion of the whole world it is 
the most beautiful spot on earth. Writers of travels 
on arriving there at once lose their heads. Perthu- 
sier falls to stammering; Tournefort declares that 
human language is powerless; Pouqueville thinks 
himself transported to another world; Gautier can- 
not believe that what he sees is real; the Viscount di 
Marcellus falls into ecstasies; La Croix is intoxi- 
cated ; Lamartine returns thanks to God; and all of 


12 THE ARRIVAL. 


them, heaping metaphor upon metaphor, endeavor to 
make their style more glowing, and search their im- 
aginations in vain for some simile that shall not fall 
miserably short of their ideas. Chateaubriand alone 
describes his arrival at Constantinople with such ap- 
parent tranquillity of soul as to strongly suggest the 
idea of stupor, but he does not fail to observe that 
it is the most beautiful thing in the world; and if 
the celebrated Lady Montague, in pronouncing a 
similar opinion, has allowed herself the use of a per- 
haps, she clearly wishes it to be tacitly understood 
that the first place belongs to her own beauty, of 
which she had a very high opinion. It is, after all, 
a cold German who declares that the most beautiful 
illusions of youth, the very dreams of first love, 
become poor and insipid when contrasted with the 
delicious sensations which steal upon the soul at the 
first sight of those charmed shores, while a learned 
Frenchman affirms that the first impression made by 
Constantinople is one of terror. 

Imagine, then, if you can, the effect produced by 
all these impassioned statements on the ardent 
brains of a clever painter of twenty-four and a bad 
poet of twenty-eight! But still, not satisfied with 
even all this illustrious praise of Constantinople, we 
turned to the sailors to see what they would have to 
say about it; and here it was the same thing. Or- 
dinary language was felt by even these rough men 


to be inadequate, and they rolled their eyes and 


THE ARRIVAL. 13 


rubbed their hands together in the effort to find 
unusual words and phrases in which to express them- 
selves, attempting their description in that far-away 
tone of voice and with the slow, uncertain gestures 
used by uneducated persons when they try to re- 
count something wonderful. ‘To arrive at Con- 
stantinople on a fine morning,” said the helmsman— 
‘“‘believe me, gentlemen, that is a great moment i a 
man’s life.” 

The weather, too, smiled upon us. It was a fine, 
calm night; the water lapped the sides of the vessel 
with a gentle murmuring sound, while the masts and 
rigging stood out clear and motionless against the 
sky sparkling with stars. We seemed hardly to 
move. In the bow a crowd of Turks lay stretched 
out at full length, blissfully smoking their hookahs 
with faces turned to the moon, whose light, falling 
upon their white turbans, made them look like sil- 
very haloes ; on the promenade deck was a concourse 
of people of every nationality under the sun, 
among them a company of hungry-looking Greek 
comedians who had embarked at Pireus. 

I can see before me now the pretty face of little 
Olga, one of a bevy of Russian children going with 
their mother to Odessa, very much astonished at my 
not understanding her language, and somewhat dis- 
pleased at having addressed the same question to me 
three consecutive times without obtaining an intel- 


ligible answer. Here on one side a fat, dirty Greek 


14 THE ARRIVAL. 


priest, wearing a hat like an inverted bushel-meas- 
ure, is looking through his glass for the Sea of Mar- 
mora, and on the other, an English evangelical 
clergyman is standing stiff and unyielding as a 
statue, who for three days past has not spoken to a 
soul nor looked at any one; near by are two pretty 
Athenian girls in their little red caps, with hair hang- 
ing down: over their shoulders, who turn simulta- 
neously toward the water whenever they find any 
one looking at them, in order to show their profiles, 
while a little farther off an Armenian merchant is 
telling the beads of his Greek rosary. Near him is a 
group of Hebrews, dressed in their antique costume, 
some Arabians in long white gowns, a melancholy- 
minded French governess, and a few of those nonde- 
script personages one always meets in travelling, 
about whom there is nothing particular to indicate 
their country or occupation ; and in the centre of all 
this mixed company a little Turkish family, consist- 
ing of a father wearing a fez, a veiled mother, and 
two little girls in trousers, all four curled up under a 
tent on a pile of many-colored pillows and cushions, 
and surrounded by a motley collection of luggage of 
every shape and hue. 

How one realized the vicinity of Constantinople ! 
On all sides there was an unwonted gayety, and the 
faces lit up by the ship’s lights were all happy ones. 
The group of children skipped around their mother 


shouting the ancient Russian name of Stambul: 


THE ARRIVAL. 15 


“ Zavegorod! Zavegorod!” Passing near one and 
another of the little groups, I caught the names 
of Galata, Pera, Skutari, Bujukdere, Terapia, which 
acted upon my excited brain like stray sparks from 
the preliminaries of some grand display of fireworks. 
Even the sailors were delighted to be nearing a place 
where, as they said, one forgets, if only for a single 
hour, all the troubles of life. Among the white 
turbans in the bow as well there were unusual signs 
of life: the imaginations of even those sluggish and 
impassive Mussulmen were stirred as there began to 
float before their minds the magic outlines of Um- 
melunia, ‘‘ Mother of the World ”—that city, as says 
the Koran, ‘‘ which commands on one side the earth, 
and on two, the sea.” It seemed as though, had the 
engine been stopped, the ship must still have gone 
on, impelled forward by the sheer force of that im- 
patient longing which throbbed and palpitated from 
her decks. From time to time, as I leaned over the 
side and looked down at the water, a hundred differ- 
ent voices seemed to mingle with the murmur of the 
waves—the voices of all those who cared for me. 
“Go,” they said, ‘son, brother, friend! Go and 
enjoy your Constantinople. You have well earned 
it; now enjoy yourself, and God be with you!” 
It was midnight before the passengers began to 
disperse, my friend and I being the last to go, and 
then with lingering steps. We could not bear to shut 
up between four walls an exuberance of joy as com- 


16 THE ARRIVAL. 


pared with which the Circle of Propontis seemed 
narrow and contracted. Halfway down the stair we 
heard the captain’s voice inviting us to come on the 
bridge the next morning. ‘“ Be up before sunrise,” 
he cried, appearing at the top of the companion- 
way; ‘‘ whoever is late will be thrown overboard.” 

A more superfluous threat was never made since 
the world began. I did not close my eyes, and I 
don’t believe that the youthful Muhammad II. on 
that famous night of Adrianople when he tore his 
bed to pieces, agitated by visions of Constantine’s 
city, tossed and turned more than did I throughout 
those four hours of expectation. In order to quiet 
my nerves I tried counting up to a thousand, keep- 
ing my eyes fixed on the line of white spray thrown 
up against my port by the movement of the vessel, 
humming monotonous tunes set to the throbbing of 
the engine, but all in vain. I was hot and fever- 
ish, my breath was labored, and the night seemed 
endless. At the first glimmer of dawn I leaped out 
of bed, to find Yunk already up; we tore into our 
clothes, and in three bounds were on deck. 

Despair! It was foggy. 

A thick, impenetrable mist concealed the horizon 
on every side, and it looked like rain; so the great 
spectacle of the approach to Constantinople was lost, 
all our hopes dashed, the voyage, in short, a failure. 
I was completely stunned. 


At this moment the captain appeared, wearing his 


THE ARRIVAL. 17 


accustomed cheerful smile. Explanations were un- 
necessary. The instant his eye fell on us he took in 
the situation, and, patting me on the shoulder, said, 
consolingly, ‘‘ That will be all right; don’t give your- 
selves the slightest concern. This fog, for which 
you ought to be very thankful, will help us to 
make the most glorious entrance into Constanti- 
nople one could possibly desire. In two hours, you 
may take my word for it, the sky will be abso- 
lutely clear.” At these brave words my blood began 
to circulate freely again, and we followed him to the 
bridge. 

The Turks were already assembled in the bow, 
seated cross-legged upon strips of carpet, with their 
faces turned toward Constantinople. Presently the 
other passengers began to appear, armed with glasses 
of all sizes and styles, and took their places, one 
after another, along the port rail of the vessel, like 
people in the gallery of a theatre waiting for the 
curtain to rise. A fresh breeze was blowing; no 
one spoke, but gradually every glass was levelled 
upon the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, 
where, as yet, nothing could be seen. 

The fog, however, had lifted so rapidly that it was 
now little more than a filmy veil hanging over the 
horizon, while above it the heavens shone out clear 
and resplendent. Directly ahead of us could be 
seen indistinctly the little archipelago of the three 
Isles of the Princes, the Demonesi of the ancients, 

Vorste=2 


18 THE ARRIVAL. 


and the favorite pleasure-grounds of the court in the 
time of the Byzantine Empire, now a popular resort 
and place of amusement for the people of Constan- 
tinople. 

Both shores of the Sea of Marmora were still 
completely hidden. 

It was not until an hour had gone by that at last 
there appeared ——— 

But there is no use in attempting to understand a 
description of the approach to Constantinople with- 
out first having a clear idea of the plan of the city. 
Supposing the reader to stand facing the mouth of 
the Bosphorus, that arm of the sea which separates 
Asia from Europe and connects the Black Sea with 
the Sea of Marmora, he will have on his right the 
continent of Asia, on his left, Europe; here ancient 
Thrace, there ancient Anatolia. Following this arm, 
he will find on his left, immediately beyond its 
mouth, a gulf, or rather an extremely narrow bay, 
forming with the Bosphorus almost a right angle, 
and stretching for some miles into the continent of 
Europe, in the shape of an ox’s horn; hence the 
name Golden Horn, or Horn of Abundance, because, 
when the capital of Byzantium was here, the 
wealth of three continents flowed through it. On 
that point of land, bathed on the one hand by the 
Sea of Marmora and by the Golden Horn on the 
other, on the site of ancient Byzantium, rises, on its 


seven hills, Stambul, the Turkish city ; across from 


THE ARRIVAL. 19 


it, on the other point, washed by the waters of the 
Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, lie Galata and 
Pera, the Frankish cities; while on the Asiatic shore, 
directly opposite the opening of the Golden Horn, 
Skutari rises from the sea. Thus what is called 
Constantinople is, in reality, three large cities 
separated by the sea—two lying opposite each other, 
and the third facing them both, and all so near 
together that from each of the three it is possible to 
distinguish the buildings of the other two nearly as 
distinctly as one can see across the widest parts of 
the Thames or the Seine. The point of the triangle 
occupied by Stambul, which curves back toward the 
Horn, is the celebrated Cape Seraglio, which con- 
ceals up to the very last moment, from any one ap- 
proaching from the Sea of Marmora, the two banks 
of the Golden Horn; that is to say, the largest and 
most beautiful part of Constantinople. 

It was the captain at last, with his trained sailor’s 
eye, who discovered the first shadowy outline of 
Stambul. 

The two Athenian ladies, the Russian family, the 
English clergyman, Yunk, I, and a number of others, 
all of whom were going to Constantinople for the 
first time, had gathered around him in a group, si- 
lent, absorbed, every eye intent on trying to pierce 
through the fog, when, suddenly throwing his left 
arm out toward the European shore, he exclaimed, 


‘Ladies and gentlemen, I see the first building !” 


20 THE ARRIVAL. 


It was a white peak, the summit of some very 
high minaret whose base remained as yet completely 
hidden. Immediately every glass was levelled at it, 
and every eye began to burrow in that little rent in 
the haze as though trying to make it larger. The 
ship was now steaming rapidly ahead. In a few 
minutes an uncertain shape was visible beside the 
minaret, then another, then two, then three, then 
many more, which, stretching out in an endless line, 
gradually assumed the appearance of houses. On 
the right and ahead of us everything was still con- 
cealed by the fog. That which was now coming into 
view was the part of Stambul which extends like 
the are of a circle for about three miles, from Cape 
Seraglio along the northern shore of the Sea of 
Marmora to the Castle of the Seven Towers; but the 
Seraglio hill was still invisible. Beyond the houses, 
one after another, the minarets now flashed into sight, 
white, lofty, their peaks touched with rose color by 
the rising sun. Below the houses we could begin to 
distinguish the dark line of the ancient walls, uneven 
and tortuous, strengthened at regular intervals by 
inassive towers, their foundations partially washed 
by the sea-waves, and encircling the entire city. 
Before long fully two miles of the city lay before us 
in full view, but, to tell the truth, the sight fell 
decidedly short of my expectations. It was just 
here that Lamartine asked himself, ‘‘Can this be 


Constantinople ?” and cried, ‘‘ What a disappoint- 





Oo 


y oan" ee —< y = 7 : ta 
- — 7 oa = : = 5 _ 
- : - : a 7 
fl 7 : 
7 7 ; 


Be 


- 








Ath i agit = sary ra an- Glass) & ee 
_ Solis e "ty are Phe Turks in r the bow at 














great Sadbind wee Riacernible chvough ‘Phe ‘fog 
ol br van domes and minarets crowded close to- 
gether like # forest of giguntic pranchless .palms.. 
-¢: = Whe t meses vt Bulian Alimed !” cried the captain, 
A pointing; “the Bayezid mosque, the mosque of - 
Osman, the Laleli mosque, the Suleiinaniyeh ! ad 
Sam But noe one wae THstening. The mist was now 
oc = babe melting away, and in every direction. there 
| icaped into View thoaques, towers, masses of green, 
otier above tier of hinpses. The farther we \ Ne | 
reapiess lided i peters St. Sop 


ar, pe to x. SUE, ‘ “ame 





THE ARRIVAL. 21 


ment !” 


The hills being still hidden, nothing was to 
be seen but interminable lines of houses along 
the shore, and the city was apparently perfectly flat. 
‘‘Captain,” I too cried, “is this Constantinople ?” 
The captain seized me by the arm and _ pointed 
ahead. ‘QO man of little faith!” said he, “look 
there!” I looked, and an exclamation of amazement 
escaped me. <A shadowy form, vast, impalpable, 
towering heavenward from a lofty eminence, rose 
before us, its graceful outlines still partially obscured 
by a filmy cloud of vapor, and surrounding it four 
tall and graceful minarets whose peaks shone like 
silver as they caught the first rays of the morning 
sun. ‘St. Sophia!” cried a sailor, and one of the 
Athenian ladies murmured in an undertone, ‘ Hagia 
Sofia!” (Holy Wisdom). The Turks in the bow at 
once rose to their feet. And now before and around 
the great basilica were discernible through the fog 
other vast domes and minarets crowded close to- 
gether like a forest of gigantic branchless palms. 
“The mosque of Sultan Ahmed!” cried the captain, 
pointing; ‘the Bayezid mosque, the mosque of 
Osman, the Laleli mosque, the Suleimaniyeh !” 
But no one was listening. The mist was now 
rapidly melting away, and in every direction there 
leaped into view mosques, towers, masses of green, 
tier above tier of houses. The farther we advanced, 
the more the city unfolded before us her charming 


outlines, irregular, picturesque, sparkling, and tinged 


22 THE ARRIVAL. 


with every hue of the rainbow, while the Seraglio 
hill now emerged completely from the fog and stood 
out clear and distinct against the gray mass of cloud 
behind it. Four miles of city, all that part of Stam- 
bul which overlooks the Sea of Marmora, lay 
stretched out before us, her black walls and many- 
colored houses reflected in the limpid water as in a 
mirror. 

Suddenly the vessel came to a standstill. Every 
one crowded around the captain to know what had 
happened. He explained that we would have to 
wait, before proceeding any farther, until the fog had 
lifted a little more. And indeed the mouth of the 
Bosphorus was still completely hidden behind a thick 
veil of mist. In less than a minute, however, this 
had begun to disperse, and we were able to move 
forward, howbeit with caution. 

' We were now approaching the hill of the Old 
Seraglio, and here the general excitement and curi- 
osity became intense. 

‘Turn your back,” said the captain, “and don’t 
look until we are directly opposite.” 

I obediently did as I was told, and tried to fix my 
attention upon a camp-stool, which seemed to dance 
before my eyes. é 

“Now!” cried the captain, after a few moments, 
and I spun around. The boat had again stopped, 
this time opposite and very close to the Seraglio. 


It is a large hill, clothed from top to bottom with 


THE ARRIVAL. 23 


cypress, terebinth, fir, and huge plane trees, whose 
branches, reaching out across the city-walls, throw 
their shadow on the water below; and from the 
midst of this mass of verdure, separately and in 
groups, as though dropped at haphazard, rise in a 
confused, disorderly mass, the roofs of kiosks and 
pavilions crowned with gilded domes and galleries, 
charming little buildings of unfamiliar shape, with 
grated windows and arabesqued doorways, white, 
small, half hidden, suggesting a labyrinth of avenues, 
courtyards, and recesses—an entire city enclosed in 
a wood, shut off from the world, full of mystery and 
sadness. The sun was now shining full upon it, but 
above there still hovered a nebulous veil of haze. 
No one was to be seen, not the faintest sound could 
be heard. All the passengers stood perfectly mo- 
tionless, their eyes fixed upon that hill invested with 
centuries of associations—glory, pleasure, love, in- 
trigue, bloodshed; the citadel, palace, and tomb of 
the great Ottoman monarchy. For a little while no 
one moved or spoke. Suddenly the first mate called 
out, ‘‘Gentlemen, Skutari is in sight !” 

Every one turned toward the Asiatic shore, 
Skutari, the Golden City, barely visible to the naked 
eye, lay scattered over the summits and sides of her 
great hills, the morning mist throwing a delicate veil 
over her radiant beauty, smiling and fresh as though 
just called into being by the touch of a fairy wand. 


Who can give any idea of that sight? The language 


24 THE ARRIVAL. 


we employ to describe our own cities is altogether in- 
adequate to depict that extraordinary variety of color 
and form, that marvellous mixture of town and coun- 
try, at once gay and austere, Oriental and Western, 
fantastic, graceful, imposing. Imagine a city com- 
posed of thousands of crimson and yellow villas, thou- 
sands of gardens overflowing with verdure, a hundred 
snow-white mosques rising in their midst; above it 
a forest of enormous cypresses, indicating the site of 
the largest cemetery of the East; on the outer edge 
huge white barracks, groups of houses and cypresses, 
villages built on the brows of little hills; beyond 
them others, again, half hidden in foliage, and over 
all, the peaks of minarets and summits of domes, 
sparkling points of light, halfway up the side of a 
mountain which closes in the horizon as it were with 
a curtain. A great metropolis scattered throughout 
an enormous garden and overhanging a shore here 
broken by steep precipices, there shelving gently 
down in green gradations to charming little inlets 
filled with shade and bloom; and below, the blue 
mirror of the Bosphorus reflecting all this splendor 
and beauty. 

As I stood gazing at Skutari my friend touched 
me on the elbow to announce the discovery of still 
another city, and, sure enough, turning toward the 
Sea of Marmora, there, on the same Asiatic shore 
and a little beyond Skutari, lay a long string of 


houses, mosques, and gardens which we had_ but 


THE ARRIVAL. 25 


lately passed in front of, but which, up to this mo- 
ment, had been entirely hidden by the fog. With 
the help of the glass it was now easy to distinguish 
cafés, bazaars, European-looking houses, flights of 
stairs, the walls of the market-gardens, and boats 
scattered along the shore. This was Kadi Keui 
(Village of the Judge), erected on the ruins of an- 
cient Chalcedon, the former rival of Byzantium— 
that Chalcedon founded six hundred and eighty- 
four years before Christ by the Megarians, to whom 
the Delphic Oracle gave the surname of The Blind 
for having selected that rather than the opposite site, 
where Stambul is now situated. 

“That makes three cities,” said the captain, 
checking them off on his fingers as each moment 
brought a fresh one into view. 

The ship was still lying stationary between Sku- 
tari and the Seraglio hill, the fog completely conceal- 
ing everything on the Bosphorus beyond Skutari, as 
well as Galata and Pera, which lay directly before 
us. Boats began to pass close by—barges, steam- 
launches, sailboats—but no one paid any attention 
to them. Every eye was glued to that gray curtain 
which hung over the Frankish city. I trembled 
with impatience and anticipation. Yet a few mo- 
ments and there would be unfolded before my eyes 
that marvellous spectacle which none has here been 
able to behold unmoved. My hands shook so vio- 
lently that it was with difficulty I could hold the 


26 THE ARRIVAL. 


glass to my eyes. The captain, worthy man, 
watched my excitement with keen delight, and, 
presently clapping his hands together, cried, ‘‘ There 
it is! there it is!” 

And, true enough, there did at last begin to ap- 
pear through the mist first little specks of white, 
then the vague outlines of a lofty eminence, then 
scattered beams of light where some window caught 
and reflected the sun’s rays, and finally Galata and 
Pera stood revealed before us—a mountain, a myriad 
of houses, of all colors, heaped one above another, 
a lofty city crowned with minarets, domes, and cy- 
press trees, and towering over all the monumental 
palaces of the foreign ambassadors and the great 
tower of Galata; beneath, the vast arsenal of Top- 
Khanéh and a forest of shipping; and still, as the 
fog lifted, more and more of the city came into view 
stretching along the banks of the Bosphorus; and in 
bewildering succession there leaped into sight streets 
and suburbs extending from the hilltops to the 
water’s edge, closely built, interminable, marked 
here and there with the sparkling white tips of the 
mosques—line upon line of buildings, little bays, 
palaces built upon the shore, pavilions, kiosks, 
gardens, groves; and, dimly outlined through the 
distant haze, other suburbs still, their roofs alone 
distinguishable, all gilded by the sun’s rays—a lux- 
uriance of color, a profusion of verdure, a succession 


of vistas, a grandeur, a grace, a glory sufficient to 


THE ARRIVAL. P| 


make any one break forth into transports of inco- 
herent delight. Every one on board, however, stood 


speechless, staring, with mouth and eyes wide open 





passengers, seamen, Turks, Europeans, children. 
Not a whisper was heard. No one knew in which 
direction to look. On one side lay Skutari and Kadi 
Keui; on the other, the Seraglio hill; opposite, Gala- 
ta, Pera, and the Bosphorus. To see it all one had 
to keep revolving around in a circle like a teetotum, 
and revolve we did, devouring with our eyes first 
this and then that, gesticulating, laughing, but 
speechless with admiration. Heavens above! what 
moments in a man’s life! 

sut yet the most beautiful and imposing sight of 
all was to come. We were still lying stationary off 
Seraglio Point, and until this has been rounded you 
cannot see the Golden Horn or get the most wonder- 
ful of all the views of Constantinople. 

“Now, gentlemen and ladies, pay attention!” 
cried the captain before giving the order to proceed. 
“This is the critical moment; in three minutes we 
shall be opposite Constantinople.” 

I felt myself grow hot and cold. For a moment 
all was still. How my heart beat! How feverishly 
I waited for that blessed word, ‘ Forward !” 

“Forward!” shouted the captain. The ship be- 
gan to move. 

On we go! Kings, princes, potentates, ye great 
ones of the earth! at that moment I felt nothing but 


28 THE ARRIVAL. 


compassion for you. All your wealth and power 
seemed but little in comparison with my place on 
that boat, and an empire a poor thing to offer in ex- 
change for one look. 

A minute passes, then another. We are gliding 
by Seraglio Point, and see opening before us an 
enormous space flooded with light and a huge mass 
of many shapes and colors. The point is passed, 
and behold! before us lies Constantinople—Constan- 
tinople, boundless, superb, sublime! The glory of 
creation and mankind! <A triumph of beauty, far 
surpassing one’s wildest dreams ! 

And now, poor wretch, attempt to describe it. 
Profane with your commonplace words that divine 
vision. Who indeed can describe Constantinople ? 
Chateaubriand? Lamartine? Gautier? What things 
you have all stammered and _ stuttered about it! 
and yet no one can resist trying. Words, phrases, 
comparisons crowd through the brain and drop off 
the end of one’s pen. I gaze, talk, write, all at 
the same time, hopeless of success, and yet com- 
pelled to the attempt by some overmastering in- 
fluence. 

Let us see, then. The Golden Horn lies directly 
opposite us like a wide river; on each bank there 
extends a ridge; upon them stretch two parallel 
lines of the city, embracing eight miles of hill and 
valley, bay and promontory, a hundred amphithea- 


tres of buildings and gardens, an cnormous space 
















J 
LS ea ae 
“it can obtam 
S) in TE 





foregrom d a for 





= 










ral 
rams, ea 
all 
A craw | 
ee -cres Lith * 





2 


s ire 









aoe 





te on th 


“ 





THE ARRIVAL. 29 


dotted over with houses, mosques, baziérs, seraglios, 
baths, kiosks, of an infinite variety of color and 
form, and from their midst the sparkling points of 
thousands of minarets reaching heavenward like great 
pillars of ivory ; then groves of cypresses descending 
in dark ranks from the hilltops to the water’s edge, 
fringing the outskirts, outlining the inlets; and 
through all a wealth of vegetation, crowning the 
heights, pushing up between the roofs, overhanging 
the water, flinging itself up in radiant luxuriance 
wherever it can obtain a foothold. To the right, 
Galata, her foreground a forest of masts and flags ; 
above Galata, Pera, the imposing shapes of her 
European palaces outlined against the sky ; in front, 
the bridge connecting the two banks, across which 
flow continually two opposite, many-hued streams of 
life; to the left, Stambul, scattered over her seven 
hills, each crowned with a gigantic mosque with its 
leaden dome and gilded pinnacle: St. Sophia, white 
and rose-tinted ; Sultan Ahmed, flanked by six mina- 
rets ; Suleiman the Great, crowned by ten domes ; the 
Validéh Sultan, reflected in the waves; on the fourth 
hill the mosque of Muhammad II.; on the fifth, that 
of Selim; on the sixth, the seraglio of Tekyr; and, 
high above everything else, the white tower of 
the Seraskerat, which commands the shores of two 
continents from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. 
Beyond the sixth hill of Stambul on the one hand, 
and Galata on the other, nothing can be distinguished 


30 THE ARRIVAL. 


save a few vague outlines of buildings, faint indica- 
tions of towns and villages, broken up by bays and 
inlets, fleets of little vessels, and groups of trees 
hardly visible through the blue haze, and which ap- 
pear more like atmospheric illusions than actual 
objects. 

How can one possibly take in all the details of 
this marvellous scene? For a moment the eye rests 
upon a Turkish house or gilded minaret close by, 
but, immediately abandoning it, roams off once more 
at will into that boundless space of light and color, 
or scales the heights of those two opposite shores 
with their range upon range of stately buildings, 
groves, and gardens, like the terraces of some en- 
chanted city, while the brain, bewildered, exhausted, 
overpowered, can with difficulty follow in its wake. 

An inexpressible majestic, serenity is diffused 
throughout this wonderful spectacle, an indefinable 
sense of loveliness and youth which recalls a thou- 
sand forgotten tales and dreams of boyhood—some- 
thing aérial, mysterious, overpowering, transporting 
the imagination and senses far beyond the bounds of 
the actual. 

The sky, in which are blended together the most 
delicate shades of blue and silver, throws every- 
thing into marvellous relief, while the water, of a 
sapphire blue and dotted over with little purple 
buoys, reflects the minarets in long trembling lines 


of white; the cupolas glisten in the sunlight; all 


THE ARRIVAL. ol 


that mass of vegetation sways and palpitates in the 
morning air; clouds of pigeons circle about the 
mosques; thousands of gayly-painted and gilded 
pleasure-boats flash over the surface of the water ; 
the zephyrs from the Black Sea come laden with the 
perfumes of a thousand flower-gardens; and when 
at length, intoxicated by the sights and sounds and 
smells of this paradise, and forgetful of all else, one 
turns away, it is only to behold with fresh sensations 
of wonder and amazement the shores of Asia, with 
their imposing panorama of beauty ; Skutari and the 
nebulous heights of the Bithynian Olympus; the Sea 
of Marmora dotted over with little islands and white 
with sails; and the Bosphorus, covered with ship- 
ping, winding away between two interminable lines 
of kiosks, palaces, and villas, to disappear at last 
mysteriously amid the most smiling and radiant hill- 
sides of the Orient. To deny that this is the most 
beautiful sight on earth would be churlish indeed, 
as ungrateful toward God as it would be unjust to 
his creation; and it is certain that anything more 
beautiful would surpass mankind’s powers of enjoy- 
ment. 

On recovering somewhat from my own first over- 
whelming sensations I turned to see how the other 
passengers had been impressed. Every countenance 
was transfixed. The eyes of the two Athenian la- 
dies were suspiciously moist; the Russian mother 


had, in that supreme moment, clasped her little Olga 


32 THE ARRIVAL. 


to her breast; even the voice of the icy English 
priest was now heard for the first time, murmuring 
to himself, ‘‘ Wonderful ! wonderful !” 

The vessel having in the mean time dropped 
anchor not far below the bridge, we were quickly 
surrounded by small boats from the shore, which a 
moment later discharged a rabble of Greek, Arme- 
nian, and Hebrew porters upon our decks, and these, 
while anathematizing the aliens from the other world, 
at the same time took possession of our property 
and our persons. After making some feeble show 
of resistance, I shook hands with the captain, gave 
a kiss to little Olga, and, bidding our fellow-passen- 
gers farewell, went over the side with my friend, 
where a four-oared barge rapidly transported us to 
the custom-house. Thence, after threading a laby- 
rinth of tortuous streets, we finally reached our quar- 
ters in the Hotel de Byzance on the summit of the 


hill of Pera, 


FIVE HOURS LATER. 


Vou. I.—3 


Ce 





FIVE HOURS LATER. 





THE visions of the morning have disappeared, and 
Constantinople, that dream of light and beauty, 
turns out to be a huge city, cut up into a succession 
of hills and valleys, a labyrinth of human anthills, 





cemeteries, ruins, and desert-places—a mixture with- 
out parallel of civilization and barbarism, reflecting 
something of every city in the world, gathering 
within its borders every aspect of human life. That 
comparatively small part enclosed within the walls 
forms, as it were, the skeleton of a mighty city ; as 
for the rest, it is a vast aggregation of barracks, an 
enormous Asiatic encampment, in which swarms a 
population of every race and religion under the sun. 
It is a great city in a state of transformation, com- 
posed of ancient towns falling into decay, of new 
ones built but yesterday, and of still others in pro- 
cess of erection. Everything is topsy-turvy; on 
all sides are seen the traces of some gigantic under- 
taking—mountains tunnelled through, hills levelled, 
suburbs razed to the ground, great thoroughfares laid 
out, heaps of stone, and the traces of disastrous 
fires, portions of the earth’s surface for ever under- 
35 


36 FIVE HOURS LATER. 


going some alteration at the hand of man. The 
disorder and confusion and the never-ending succes- 
sion of strange and unexpected sights make one 
dizzy. 

Walk down a stately street, and you find it ends 
in a precipice; come out of a theatre, and you are 
surrounded by tombs; climb to the summit of a hill, 
beneath your feet you discover a forest, while a new 
city confronts you from some neighboring hilltop ; 
the street you have this moment left suddenly winds 
away from you through a deep valley half hidden by 
trees; walk around a house, you discover a bay; 
descend a lane, farewell to the city: you find your- 
self in a lonely defile, with nothing to be seen but 
the sky above you; towns appear and disappear con- 
tinually. They start into view over your head, be- 
neath your feet, over your shoulder, far off, near by, 
in sun and shadow, on the tops of mountains and on the 
shore below. Take a step forward, an immense pan- 
orama is spread out before you; backward, and you 
see nothing at all; lift your head, and the points of 
a thousand minarets flash before your eyes; turn it, 
and not one is in sight. The network of streets 
winds in and out among the hills, overtopping ter- 
races, grazing the edges of precipices, passing be- 
neath aqueducts, to break up suddenly in footpaths 
leading down some grassy incline to the water’s edge, 
or else, skirting piles of ruins, meanders away among 


rocks and sand to the open country. Here and there 


FIVE HOURS LATER. 37 


the huge metropolis stops, as it were, to take breath 
in the solitude of the country, then recommences, 
more crowded, gay, noisy, bewildering, than before ; 
here it spreads out flat and monotonous, there scales 
the hillside, disappears over the summit, disperses ; 
then once more gathers itself together. In one 
section it ferments with life, noise, movement; in 
another there is the stillness of death; one quarter is 
all red, another white, a third shines with gilding, a 
fourth looks like a mountain of flowers: stately city, 
village, country, garden, harbor, wilderness, market, 
cemetery, in endless succession, rear themselves, one 
above another, in such a manner that certain heights 
command in a single view all the aspects of life 
which are usually found embraced in an entire prov- 
ince. In every direction a series of strange and 
unfamiliar shapes is outlined against the sea and 
sky, so close together and so indented and broken up 
by the extraordinary variety of architectural forms 
that the eye becomes confused and the various ob- 
jects seem to melt one into another. 

In among the Turkish dwelling-houses European 
palaces rise suddenly up, spires overtop the mina- 
rets, and cupolas crown the garden-terraces, with 
battlemented walls behind them; roofs of Chinese 
kiosks appear above the fagade of a theatre; barred 
and grated harems face rows of glazed windows; 
side by side with open balconies and terraces are 
found Moorish buildings with recessed windows and 


38 FIVE HOURS LATER. 


small forbidding doorways. Shrines to the Madonna 
are set up beneath Arabian archways; tombs stand 
in the courtyards; towers arise amid the hovels; 
mosques, synagogues, Greek, Catholic, Armenian 
churches, crowd one upon the other, as though each 
were striving for the mastery, and, from every spot 
unoccupied by buildings, cypress and pine, fig and 
plane trees stretch forth their branches and tower 
above the surrounding roofs. 

An indescribable architecture of expedients, fol- 
lowing the infinite caprices of the soil, portions of 
buildings cut up into sections, triangular, upright, 
prone, surrounded and connected by bridges, props, 
and defiles, heaped up in confused masses, like huge 
fragments detached from a mountain-side. 

At every hundred steps the scene changes. Now 
you are ina suburb of Marseilles; turn, and it be- 
comes an Asiatic village; another turn, and it is a 
Greek settlement; still another, a suburb of Trebi- 
zond. ‘The language and dress, the faces you meet, 
the look of the houses in the various quarters, all 
suggest a different country from the one you have 
just left; they are bits of France, slices of Italy, 
samples of England, scraps of Russia. One sees de- 
picted in vivid colors on the great surface of the 
city that battle which is here being waged between 
the various groups of Christians on the one hand 
fighting to repossess themselves of, and Islamism on 


the other defending with all its remaining strength, 








se ear 


= 







> Ole, 


cits 


tes ip iy Rleentd Mover atep Doe ste, Froid 
ie i ot iothrwat : om one strep Ie pd tee smanyhetery 
a en ee 
eo ag; @: Turkish cafd, a beddsa Ream, ee oe-tuet: 
Sait the course of = quate ge, Ivic: Suse te 
Scobttped to shar his gait at INqehi Me mye, ¥'m 
Prannat\ désdandy, mount, climb eee eee oad ap. 
Bine-oF up by stasre Cob detk ot Sey Rt, Ape 
Fe eit oma ae 
Obstacles, threaditgg 97. cow Venous bees 
Of people, then in et aS shoubeaer > ere 
stooping to wvolddieignt-Rodmtein neg aes ee dry ; 
noon ae * »!) yaar Greatly ay tho 








ake 
re ae 


nistnuoT tasiotA 


a 


FIVE HOURS LATER. 39 


the sacred soil of Constantinople. Stambul, once 
entirely Turkish, is assailed on all sides by settle- 
ments of Christians, before whose advance it is 
slowly giving way all along the banks of the Golden 
Horn and the shores of the Sea of Marmora; in other 
directions the conquest is proceeding much more 
rapidly: churches, hospitals, palaces, public gardens, 
schools, and factories are rending asunder the Mus- 
sulman’s quarters, encroaching upon his cemeteries, 
and advancing from one height to another, until 
already, on the dismayed soil, there are sketched 
the vague outlines of another European city, as 
large as the one now covering the banks of the 
Golden Horn, and destined one day to embrace the 
European shore of the Bosphorus. 

But from such general observations as these the 
attention is distracted at every step by some fresh 
object of interest: on one street it is the monastery 
of the dervishes, in another a great Moorish build- 
ing, a Turkish café, a bazar, a fountain, an aqueduct. 
In the course of a quarter of an hour, too, one is 
obliged to alter his gait at least a dozen times. You 
must descend, mount, climb down some steep in- 
cline or up by stairs cut out of the rock, wade 
through the mud and surmount a thousand different 
obstacles, threading your way now through crowds 
of people, then in and out among shrubbery ; here 
stooping to avoid lines of clothes hung out to dry ; 
at one moment obliged to hold your breath, at the 


40 FIVE HOURS LATER. 


next inhaling a hundred delicious odors. From a 
terrace flooded with light and commanding a mag- 
nificent view of the Bosphorus, Asia, and the blue 
arch of heaven one step will bring you to a network 
of narrow alley-ways, leading in and out among 
wretched, half-ruined houses and choked up with 
heaps of stone and rubbish; from some delicious 
retreat filled with verdure and bloom you emerge 
on a dry, dusty waste littered with débris; from a 
thoroughfare glowing with life, movement, and color 
you step into some sepulchral recess, where it seems 
as though the silence had never been broken by the 
sound of a human voice; from the glorious Orient 
of one’s dreams to quite another Orient, forbidding, 
oppressive, falling into decay, and suggestive of all 
that is mournful and depressing. After walking 
about for a few hours amid this medley of strange 
sights, one’s brain becomes completely confused. 
Were any one to suddenly put the question to you, 
“ What sort of a place is Constantinople?” you 
would only stare at him vacantly, quite incapable 
of giving any intelligible reply. Constantinople is a 
Babylon, a world, a chaos.—Is it beautiful ?—Mar- 
vellously.—Ugly ?—Horribly so.—Do you like it? 
—It fascinates me.—Shall you remain ?—How on 
earth can I tell? Can any one tell how long he is 
likely to stay on another planet ? 

You return at last to your lodgings, enthusiastic, 


lisappointed, enchanted, disgusted, stunned, stupe- 


FIVE HOURS LATER. 41 


fied, your head whirling around like that of a person 
in the first stages of brain fever. This condition 
gradually gives way to one of complete prostration, 
utter exhaustion of mind and body; you have lived 
years in the course of a few hours, and feel yourself 
aged. 


And the population of this huge city ? 


sear eo cs 


iyi eee ST 





; at pe aia esl iess om a 





—/ ee i 


THE BRIDGE. 











ne 


| ‘ 


Sey Peulgt 2 a 
i: Bit i “+ honin hat Pe al " 


} i ane 
ie + tat thts Feng ad P 
| Shag} 





ivi 5 ay halla harricy, see! tomers that 

BS os AIR kates! Ws « ionada Ryosuke, 

am, Hen does incl BME® of, Sel tR. ims. P 
"Btanding thea ce: tas WS) acre ie 


7 
re 





4 
Pe 5 coe A, ele 
- : ¥ 4 a | ?. — 





“~ Bice 7 
7” s i. esas 
* > rs 
7 
= : - a 


THE BRIDGE. 


THE best place from which to see the population 
of Constantinople is the floating bridge, about a quar- 
ter of a mile long, which connects the extreme point 
of Galata with the opposite shore of the Golden 
Horn, just below the mosque of the Validéh Sultan. 
Both banks are European territory, but, notwith- 
standing this fact, the bridge may be said to connect 
Europe and Asia, since nothing in Stambul but the 
ground itself is European, and even those quarters 
occupied by Christians have taken on an Asiatic cha- 
racter. The Golden Horn, though in appearance a 
river, in reality separates two different worlds, like an 
ocean. European news reaches Galata and Pera, and 
at once it is in every one’s mouth, and circulates rap- 
idly, fresh, minute, and accurate, while in Stambul 
it is heard only like some vague, far-away echo; the 
fame of worldwide reputations and the most startling 
events roll back from before that little strip of water 
as from some insuperable barrier, and across that 
bridge, daily traversed by a hundred thousand feet, 
an idea does not pass once in ten years. 

Standing there, you can see all Constantinople pass 

45 


46 THE BRIDGE. 


by in the course of an hour. Two human currents 
flow incessantly back and forth from dawn to sunset, 
affording a spectacle which the market-places of In- 
dia, the Pekin fetes, or the fairs of Nijnii-Novgorod 
can certainly give but a faint conception of. In order 
to get anything like a clear idea you must fix your 
attention on some particular point and look nowhere 
else. The instant you allow your eyes to wander 
everything becomes confused and you lose your 
head. The crowd surges by in great waves of color, 
each group of persons representing a different 
nationality. Try to imagine the most extravagant 
contrasts of costume, every variety of type and so- 
cial class, and your wildest dreams will fall short of 
the reality ; in the course of ten minutes and in the 
space of a few feet you will have seen a mixture of 
race and dress you never conceived of before. 
Behind a crowd of Turkish porters, who go by on 
a run, bending beneath the weight of enormous 
burdens, there comes a sedan chair inlaid with 
mother-of-pearl and ivory, out of which peeps the 
head of an Armenian lady; on either side of it may 
be seen a Bedouin wrapped in his white cape, and 
an old Turk wearing a white muslin turban and blue 
caftan; a young Greck trots by, followed by his 
dragoman dressed in embroidered zouaves; next 
comes a dervish in his conical hat and camel’s-hair 
mantle, who jumps aside to make room for the 


carriage of an European ambassador preceded. by 


THE BRIDGE. 47 


liveried outriders. One can hardly be said to 
actually see all of these, only to catch glimpses of 
them as they flash by. Before you have time to 
turn around you find yourself surrounded by a 
Persian regiment in their towering caps of black 
astrakhan ; close behind them comes a Hebrew, clad 
in a long yellow garment open up the sides; then a 
dishevelled gypsy, her baby slung in a sack on her 
back; next a Catholic priest, with his staff and 
breviary ; while advancing among a mixed crowd 
of Greeks, Turks, and Armenians may be seen a 
gigantic eunuch on horseback, shouting Vardah ! 
(Make way !), and, closely following him, a Turkish 
carriage decorated with flowers and birds and filled 
with the ladies of a harem, dressed in green and 
violet and enveloped in great white veils; behind 
them comes a Sister of Charity from one of the Pera 
hospitals, and after her an African slave carrying a 
monkey, and a story-teller in the garb of a necro- 
mancer. One point which strikes the stranger as 
being singular, although it is in reality the most natu- 
ral thing in the world, is that all this queer multitude 
of people pass one another without so much as a 
glance, just as though it were some London crowd ; 
no one stops; every one hurries on intent upon his 
own affairs, and out of a hundred faces that pass by 
not one will wear a smile. The Albanian in his 
long white garment, with pistols thrust in his belt, 
brushes against the Tartar clad in sheepskin; the 


48 THE BRIDGE. 


Turk guides his richly-caparisoned ass between two 
files of camels ; close behind the aide-de-camp of one 
of the imperial princes, mounted on an Arabian 
charger, a cart rumbles along piled up with the 
odd-looking effects of some Turkish household. A 
Mussulman woman on foot, a veiled female slave, a 
Greek with her long flowing hair surmounted by a 
little red cap, a Maltese hidden in her black faldetta, 
a Jewess in the ancient costume of her nation, a 
negress wrapped in a many-tinted Cairo shawl, an 
Armenian from Trebizond, all veiled in black—a 
funereal apparition; these and many more follow 
each other in line as though it were a procession 
gotten up to display the dress of the various nations 
of the world. It is an ever-changing mosaic, a 
kaleidoscopic view of race, costume, and religion, 
which forms and dissolves with a rapidity the eye 
and brain can with difficulty follow. It is quite 
interesting to fix your gaze on the footway of the 
bridge and look for a while at nothing but the feet: 
every style of footwear that the world has known, 
from that which obtained in Eden up to the very 
latest phase of Parisian fashion, goes by—yellow 
babbuccie, the red slipper of the Armenian, tur- 
quoise-blue of the Greek, and black of the Israelite 
—sandals, high boots from Turkistan, Albanian 
leggings, slashed shoes, gambass of the Asia Minor 
horsemen of all colors, gold-embroidered slippers, 


Spanish alpargatas, feet shod in leather, satin, rags, 


THE BRIDGE. 49 


wood, crowded so close together that in looking at one 
you are aware of a hundred. And while thus en- 
gaged you must be on your guard to avoid being 
knocked down. Now it is a water-carrier with his 
huge water-skin on his back, or a Russian lady going 
by on horseback ; now a troop of imperial soldiers 
wearing the uniform of zouaves, who advance as 
though charging the enemy; now a procession of 
Armenian porters, who pass two by two, carrying 
huge bales of goods suspended from long poles 
across their shoulders; then a crowd of Turks push 
their way to right and left through the throng in 
order to embark on some of the many little steam- 
boats which, starting from the bridge, ply up and 
down the Bosphorus and Golden Horn. It is one 
continuous tramp and roar, a murmur of hoarse 
gutturals and incomprehensible interjections, among 
which the occasional French or Italian words which 
reach the ear seem like rays of light seen through 
a thick darkness. The figures which strike the 
fancy most forcibly of all are, perhaps, those of the 
Cireassians. These wild, bearded men, who pass 
with measured tread in groups of four or five, wear- 
ing large fur caps like those of the ancient 
Napoleon guard, and long black caftans, with 
daggers thrust in the belt and a silver cartridge- 
box suspended on the breast, look like veritable 
types of brigands, or as though their sole business 
in Constantinople might be the sale of a sister or 
Vor. I.—4. 


50 THE BRIDGE. 


daughter dragged thither by hands already imbued 
with Russian blood. Then there is the Syrian, 
elad in a long Byzantine dolman, with a gold-striped 
handkerchief wrapped about his head; the Bul- 
garian, in sombre-colored tunic and fur-edged cap; 
the Georgian, with his casque of dressed leather 
and tunic gathered into a metal belt; the Greek 
from the Archipelago, covered with, lace, silken 
tassels, and shining buttons. From time to time it 
seems as though the crowd were receding somewhat, 
but it is only to surge forward once more in great, 
overpowering waves of color crested with white 
turbans like foam, in whose midst may occasionally 
be seen a high hat or umbrella or the towering head- 
gear of some European lady tossed hither and 
thither by that Mussulman torrent. 

It is stupefying merely to note the diversity of 
religions represented. Here gleams the shining 
pate of a Capuchin father; there towers aloft the 
ulema’s Janissary turban; farther on the black veil 
of the Armenian priest floats in the breeze ; imams 
pass in their white tunics; nuns of the Stigmata; 
chaplains of the Turkish army clad in green and 
carrying sabres; Dominican brothers; pilgrims re- 
turned from Meecea wearing talismans about their 
necks; Jesuits; deryishes; and these last, queerly 
enough, carry umbrellas to protect them from the 
sun, while in the mosques they may be seen tearing 


their flesh in self-inflicted torture for their sins. 


THE BRIDGE. Hh 


To one who watches attentively a thousand amus- 
ing and interesting little incidents detach themselves 
from the general confusion. Now it is a eunuch, 
who glares out of the corner of his eye at a young 
Christian dandy caught peering too curiously into 
the carriage of his mistress; a French cocotte, 
dressed in the latest fashion, who follows the gloved 
and bejewelled son of a pasha; a sergeant of cav- 
alry in full-dress uniform, who, stopping short in the 
middle of the bridge, and, seizing his nose between 
two fingers, emits a trumpet blast loud enough to 
make one jump; or a quack, who, in return for 
some poor wretch’s piece of money, makes a caba- 
listic sign on his forehead supposed to restore his 
eyesight; here a large family-party, newly arrived, 
have gotten separated in the crowd: the mother 
rushes hither and thither, searching for her children, 
who, on their part, are weeping at the tops of their 
voices, while the men of the party try to mend mat- 
ters by laying about them in all directions; a lady 
from Stambul passes by, and under pretence of ad- 
justing her veil gets a good look at the train of a 
lady from Pera. Horses, camels, sedan chairs, car- 
riages, ox-carts, casks on wheels, bleeding donkeys, 
skinny dogs, pass in a long file, dividing the crowd 
in two. Sometimes a big fat pasha of the three horse- 
tails goes by ina magnificent carriage, followed on 
foot by a negro, his guard, and his pipe-bearer. The 


Turks all salute him, touching the forehead and the 


52 THE BRIDGE. 


breast, while a throng of Mussulman beggars, hor- 
rible, meagre-looking wretches, with muffled faces 
and bare chests, hurl themselves at the carriage-win- 
dows, begging vociferously for alms. Eunuchs out 
of employment pass in groups of two and three or a 
half dozen at a time, with cigarettes in their mouths, 
easily distinguished by their corpulency, their long 
arms, and great black cloaks. Pretty little Turkish 
girls, dressed like boys in green trousers and red 
or yellow waistcoats, run and jump about with cat- 
like agility, pushing their way through the crowd 
with soft little crimson-tinted hands; shoe-cleaners 
with their gilded boxes; wandering barbers, their 
stool and basin ready at hand; venders of water and 
Turkish sweetmeats can be seen in every direction, 
threading their way through the press and shouting 
out their wares and avocations in Greek and Turk- 
ish. At every step you meet-a military uniform, 
officers in fiery and scarlet trousers, their breasts 
glittering with decorations; grooms of the Seraglio 
gotten up like generals in command of an army ; 
policemen carrying whole arsenals at their belts ; 
zeibeks, or free soldiers, wearing those enormous 
breeches with pockets behind which give them out- 
lines like the Hottentot Venus; imperial guards with 
nodding white plumes on their helmets, and breasts 
covered with gold lace ; city guards, who march about 
carrying handcuffs—Constantinople city guards! One 


night as well speak of people who had been charged 


THE BRIDGE. 53 


with the duty of keeping down the Atlantic Ocean. One 
curious contrast is that which is found between the rich 
clothing on the one hand and the miserable rags on the 
other, between persons so laden down with the quan- 
tity and magnificence of their apparel as to look like 
walking bazars and others who scarcely may be said 
to have any apparel at all. The nakedness alone is 
a noteworthy sight. Every tint of human skin can 
be found, from the milk-white Albanian to the jet- 
black slave from Central Africa or blue-black native 
of Darfur; breasts which look as though they would 
resound at a blow like a bronze vase or break in 
pieces like an earthenware pot; hard, oily, wooden 
surfaces, or shaggy like the hide of a wild boar; 
brawny arms tattooed with outlines of leaves and 
flowers or rude representations of ships under full 
sail, and hearts transfixed by arrows. All such par- 
ticulars, however, as these cannot possibly be noted 
in the course of a single visit to the bridge. While 
you are trying to make out the designs tattooed on 
an arm, your guide is calling your attention to a 
Serb, a Montenegrin, a Wallach, an Ukrainian Cos- 
sack, a Cossack of the Don, an Egyptian, a native 
of Tunis, a prince of Imerezia. There is hardly time 
even to make a note of the different nationalities. 
It is as though Constantinople still maintained her 
former position as queen of three continents and 
capital of twenty tributary kingdoms. Yet even 
this would hardly account for the extraordinary fea- 


54 THE BRIDGE. 


tures of that spectacle, and one amuses himself by 
fancying that some mighty deluge has swept over 
the neighboring continent, causing a sudden influx 
of immigration. An expert eye can still distinguish 
in that mighty human torrent the distinctive fea- 
tures and costumes of Caramania and Anatolia, of 
Cypress and of Candia, of Damascus and Jerusalem 
—Druses, Kurds, Maronites, Telemans, Pumacs, 
and Kroats, and all the innumerable variety of the 
innunerable confederations of anarchies extending 
from the Nile to the Danube and from the Euphrates 
to the Adriatic. Those in search of the beautiful 
and those with a craving for the horrible will find, 
equally, their wildest hopes surpassed. Raphael 
would have been in eestasies, Rembrandt beside 
himself with delight. The purest examples of Gre- 
cian beauty and that of the Caucasian races appear 
side by side with snub noses and receding foreheads. 
Women pass with the look and bearing of queens, 
others who might pose as furies. There are painted 
faces and faces disfigured by disease and wounds, 
colossal feet and the tiny feet of the Circassian no 
longer than your hand; gigantic porters, great fat 
Turks, and negroes like dried-up skeletons, ghosts 
of human beings who fill you with horror and pity ; 
every aspect of human life, extremes of asceticisin 
and voluptuousness, utter weariness, radiant luxury, 
and wasted misery ; and, still more remarkable than 


the variety of human beings, is that of the garments 


THE BRIDGE. 5D 


they wear. Any one with an eye for color would 
find himself in clover. No two persons are dressed 
alike. Some heads are enveloped in shawls, others 
crowned with rags, others decked out like savages— 
shirts and undervests striped or particolored like a 
harlequin’s dress; belts bristling with weapons, some 
of them reaching from the waist to the arm-pits; 
Mameluke trousers, knee-breeches, tunics, togas, 
long cloaks which sweep the ground, capes trimmed 
with ermine, waistcoats encrusted with gold, short 
sleeves and balloon-shaped ones, monastic garbs and 
theatre costumes; men dressed like women, women 
who seem to be men, and peasants with the air of 
princes; a ragged magnificence, an exuberance of 
color, a profusion of ornament, braid, fringe, frip- 
pery of all sorts; a childish and theatrical display 
of decoration, which makes one think of a ball given 
by the inmates of an insane asylum, who have 
decked themselves out with the contents of all the 
peddlers’ packs in the world. 

Above the babel of sounds made by all this multi- 
tude one hears the piercing cries of the Greek news- 
boys selling newspapers in all languages under 
heaven, the stentorian tones of the porters, loud 
laughter of the Turkish women; the infantile 
voices of the eunuchs; the shrill falsetto of a blind 
beggar reciting verses from the Koran; the hollow- 
resounding noise of the bridge itself as it sways 


under this multitude of feet; the bells and whistles 


56 THE BRIDGE. 


from a hundred steamboats, whose smoke, coming 
in great puffs, from time to time envelops the entire 
throng of passers-by. This vast concourse of people 
embarks in the boats which leave every moment for 
Skutari, the villages along the Bosphorus, and the 
suburbs on the Golden Horn; spreads out over 
the bazars and mosques of Stambul, the suburbs of 
Fanar and Balat, to the most distant points on the 
Sea of Marmora; flows like an advancing tide in 
two great currents over the Frankish shore, to the 
right in the direction of the sultan’s palaces, to the 
left toward the ancient quarters of Pera, and, reced- 
ing once more across the bridge, is fed by innumer- 
able little streams flowing down the steep, narrow 
lanes and byways which cover the hillsides of both 
banks, connecting ten cities and a hundred villages, 
and binding together Asia and Europe in an intricate 
network of commerce, intrigue, and mystery, at the 
mere thought of which one’s mind becomes hope- 
lessly confused. 

One would naturally expect all this to make an 
amusing and enlivening spectacle, but it is quite 
otherwise: after the first sensations of excitement 
and wonder have died down the brilliant coloring 
begins to pale; it no longer wears the aspect of a 
gay Carnival procession, but humanity itself seems 
to be passing in review—humanity with all its mis- 
eries and follies, its infinite discord of clashing be- 


liefs and irreconcilable customs, a pilgrimage of 


THE BRIDGE. 57 
decayed races and humbled nations; a boundless 
tide of human misery ; wrongs to be set right, stains 
to be washed out, chains to be broken; an accumu- 
lation of tremendous problems which blood alone, 
and that in torrents, is capable of solving—a sight 
at once overpowering and depressing. One’s in- 
terest, too, is rather blunted than aroused by the 
enormous number and variety of strange sights and 
objects. What sudden mysterious changes the mind 
is subject to! Here was I, not a quarter of an hour 
after reaching the bridge, leaning listlessly against 
the side, scribbling on the wooden beam with a pen- 
cil, and acknowledging, between my yawns, that 
Madame de Staéel was pretty near the truth when 
she pronounced travelling to be the most melancholy 


of human pleasures. 





- yrisegr ‘tolerated es : 


ot E 
ee eo en 
Zz! 3 








es 


STAMBUL. 





os a oa oe a 


STAMBUL. 


In order to restore one’s equilibrium after the 
bewildering scenes of the bridge it is only necessary 
to follow one of the many narrow streets which wind 
up the hillsides of Stambul. Here there reigns a 
profound peace, and you may contemplate at your 
leisure those mysterious and evasive aspects of 
Oriental life of which only flying glimpses can be 
obtained on the other bank amid the noise and con- 
fusion of European manners and customs. Here 
everything is Eastern in its strictest sense. After 
walking for fifteen minutes the last sounds have 
died away, the crowds entirely disappeared ; you are 
surrounded on every side by little wooden, brightly- 
painted houses, whose second stories extend out 
over the ground floor, and the third again over 
those; in front of the windows are balconies en- 
closed with glass and close wooden gratings, which 
look like little houses thrown out from the main 
dwelling, and lend to the city an indescribable air 
of secresy and melancholy. In some places the 
streets are so narrow that the overhanging parts of 


opposite houses nearly touch, and you walk for long 
61 


62 STAMBUL. 


distances in the shadow of these human bird-cages 
and literally beneath the feet of the Turkish women, 
who pass the greater part of the day in them, seeing 
nothing but a narrow strip of sky. All the doors 
are tightly shut, and the windows on the ground 
floor protected by gratings. Everything breathes 
of jealousy and suspicion; one seems to be travers- 
ing a city of convents. Sometimes the stillness is 
suddenly broken by a ripple of laughter close at 
hand, and, looking quickly up, you may discover at 
some small opening or loophole the flash of a bright 
eye or a shining lock of hair, which, however, 
instantly disappears; or, again, you surprise a con- 
versation being carried on in quick, subdued tones 
across the street, which breaks off suddenly at the 
sound of your footsteps, and you continue your way 
wondering what thread of mystery or intrigue you 
may have broken in your passage. Seeing no one 
yourself, you have the consciousness of a thousand 
eyes upon you; apparently quite alone, you yet feel 
yourself to be surrounded by restless, palpitating 
life. Wishing, 
tread lightly, walk rapidly, but all the same you are 


possibly, to pass unobserved, you 


watched on all sides. So profound is the silence 
that the mere opening and shutting of a door or 
window startles you as though it were some tremen- 
dous noise. One might suppose that the aspect of 
these streets would become monotonous and tiresome, 


but it is not so. A mass of foliage out of which 


STAMBUL. 63 


issues the white point of a minaret, a Turk dressed 
in red coming toward you, a black servant standing 
immovable before a doorway, a strip of Persian 
‘arpet hanging from a window, suffice to form a 
picture so full of life and harmony that one could 
stand gazing at it by the hour. Of the few persons 
who do pass by, none appear to notice you; only 
occasionally you hear a voice at your shoulder call 
out ‘ Giaour !/” (infidel), and turn just in time to see 
a boy’s head disappearing behind a window-shutter. 
Again, hearing a door being opened from within, 
you pause expectantly, fully prepared to see the 
favorite beauty of some harem come forth in full 
costume, instead of which an European lady in 
bonnet and train appears and, with a murmured 
Adieu or Au revoir, walks rapidly away, leaving 
you open-mouthed with astonishment. 

In another street, entirely Turkish and silent, you 
are suddenly startled by the sound of a horn and 
the stamping of horses’ feet ; turning to see what 
it means, you find it difficult to believe your 
eyes when a large ear rolls gayly into sight over 
some tracks which up to that moment you had not 
noticed, filled with Turks and Europeans, with its 
officials in uniform and its printed tariff of fares, 
for all the world like a tramway in Vienna or Paris. 
The effect of such an apparition, seen in one of those 
streets, is not to be described: it is like a burlesque 


or some huge joke, and you laugh aloud as you 


G4 STAMBUL. 


watch it disappear, as though you had never seen 
anything of the kind before. With the omnibus the 
life and movement of Europe seem to vanish, and 
you find yourself back in Asia, like a change ef 
scene at the theatre. Issuing from almost any of 
these silent, deserted streets, you come out upon 
small open spaces shaded by one huge plane tree: 
on one hand there is a fountain out of which camels 
are drinking; on the other, a café in front of which 
a number of Turks recline on mats, smoking and 
gazing into vacancy ; beside the door stands a large 
fig tree, up whose trunk a vine clambers, extending 
out over the branches and falling in waving garlands 
to the ground, and between whose leaves enchanting 
glimpses are caught of the blue waters of the Sea 
of Marmora dotted all over with white sails. The 
flood of light and the death-like stillness give these 
places a certain character, half solemn, half melan- 
choly, which makes an indelible impression upon the 
mind: one is carried on and on, drawn, as it were, 
out of himself by a subtle sense of mystery which 
steeps the senses little by little, until he loses all 
idea of time and space and seems to float on a vague 
cloud of dreams. 

From time to time you come upon vast barren 
tracts devastated by some recent fire; hillsides with 
a few houses scattered here and there, and grassy 
spaces between them, intersected with goat-paths ; 


tops of hills from which can be seen hundreds of 














i. = easoms. “Hers ore’ met the oquiipeuers s/f yranlions, 


~ Stiigede-cxmp in fall uniform, officials, omy ie. 


<7 Soames beteeering, yn qrent hoor. and fs of sui 
oe mad patasiies wmminy wih jews oo © crite etic 


| ebaaion ‘between thay tortie Ue inh cee 


recognizes the fact that deg), 28% aise ce 

; yereat:enipire, and admires: a x 9% Gy een Sore 
of display... The brillisat awmremioo aot cred 
_ Fountain of Court of the Mosque of Ahmed 
bright semshiine aud delivione witness of te shade, 
all affect the sonves Whe sa bdieed musmic, and a hun- 


Vou. i. ot 


, 





hk 


bemdA 


STAMBUL. 65 


houses and gardens, streets and lanes, but not a liv- 
ing creature, a wreath of smoke, an open door, or 
the faintest indication of human life, until one almost 
begins to think himself alone in the midst of this 
immense city, and, thinking so, to become a trifle 
uncomfortable. But just follow one of those steep 
little streets down to the bottom, and in an instant 
the whole scene changes. You are now on one of 
the great thoroughfares of Stambul, flanked by 
splendid buildings, whose beauty almost defies your 
powers of admiration. On every side rise mosques, 
kiosks, minarets, arcades, fountains of marble and 
lapis lazuli, mausoleums of sultans glowing with ara- 
besques and inscriptions in gold, their walls covered 
with mosaics, their roofs of inlaid cedar-wood, and 
everywhere that exuberance of vegetation which, 
pushing its way through gilded railings and scaling 
garden-walls, fills the air with the perfume of its 
blossoms. Here are met the equipages of pashas, 
aides-de-camp in full uniform, officials, employés, 
eunuchs belonging to great houses, and files of servants 
and parasites coming and going in a continual suc- 
cession between the residences of the ministers: one 
recognizes the fact that he is in the metropolis of a 
great empire, and admires it in all its magnificence 
of display. The brilliant atmosphere and graceful 
architecture, the murmuring of the fountains, the 
bright sunshine and delicious coolness of the shade, 
all affect the senses like subdued music, and a hun- 
Vou. I.—5. 


66 STAMBUL. 


dred smiling images crowd through the mind.  Fol- 
lowing these thoroughfares, you emerge upon the 
large open squares, from which arise the mosques 
of the various sultans, before whose stately magnif- 
icence you pause in wondering awe. Each one of 
these mighty buildings forms the centre, as it were, 
of a small separate city, with its colleges, hospitals, 
stores, libraries, schools, and baths, whose existence 
is at first hardly suspected, so overshadowed are they 
by the huge dome which they encircle. The archi- 
tecture, so simple in appearance when seen from a 
distance, now presents a mass of detail attracting the 
eye in all directions at once. There are little cu- 
polas overlaid with lead, oddly-shaped roofs rising 
one above another, aerial galleries, enormous porti- 
coes, windows broken by little columns, festooned 
archways, spiral minarets, lines of terraces with 
open-work carving, and capitals supported on stylo- 
bates, doorways and fountains covered with orna- 


ment, walls picked out in gold and every color of the 





rainbow—a mass of carving and fretwork, light, 
graceful, exquisite, across which the shadows chase 
each other from great oak and cypress trees and 
willows, while clouds of birds, issuing from the 
overspreading branches, fly in slow circles around 
the interiors of the domes, filling every corner of 
the immense edifice with harmony. And now, for 
the first time, you begin to be conscious of a feeling 


stronger and more ‘underlying than a mere sense of 


STAMBUL. 67 


the beautiful. These huge structures seem like the 
marble witnesses of an order of thought and_ belief 
altogether different from that in which you have been 
born and reared—the imposing framework of a hos- 
tile race and faith, testifying in a mute but expres- 
sive language of lofty heights and glorious lines to 
the might of a God who is not your God, and a 
people before whom your fathers have trembled, 
filling you with admiration not unmixed with awe, 
which, for a time at least, checks your curiosity and 
holds you at a distance. 

Within the shady courtyards Turks may be seen 
at the fountains busied about their ablutions, peasants 
crouched at the foot of the great pillars, veiled wo- 
men who pass with deliberate steps beneath the lofty 
arcades: over all there broods a profound quiet, a 
tinge of sadness and voluptuousness, whose source 


you try in vain to discover, exercising your mind 





as upon some enigma. Galata, Pera—how far away 
they seem! It is as though you were in another 
world alone, in a different age. This is the Stambul 
of Suleiman the Magnificent or Bayezid II., and you 
feel dazed and confused when, on turning away from 
the square and losing sight of the stupendous monu- 
ment of the power of the Osmans, you find yourself 
once more confronted by the Constantinople of to- 
day, of wood, poverty, and decay, filled with dirt, 
wretchedness, and misery. 


As you go on and on the houses gradually lose 


68 STAMBUL. 


their bright coloring, the vine-trellises disappear, 
moss creeps over the basins of the fountains, the 
mosques become small and mean, with wooden mina- 
rets and cracked, discolored walls, around which 
brambles and nettles have sprung up; ruined mau- 
soleums, broken stairways, tortuous lanes choked 
with rubbish and reeking with damp; deserted quar- 
ters full of gloom, whose silence is unbroken save 
for the flapping of birds’ wings or the guttural cry 
of a muezzin calling out the word of God from some 
distant unseen minaret. On the face of no city in 
the world is written in such plain characters the 
nature of her people’s beliefs. Everything grand 
or beautiful comes from God, or the sultan—His 
representative upon earth. All the rest, being 
merely temporary, is not worthy of consideration 
and bears the stamp of an utter indifference to 
mundane things. This pastoral tribe has become 
a nation, but the instinctive love of nature, of a life 
of contemplation and idleness, is as strong among 
its people as ever, and has lent to their metropolis 
the look of an encampment. Stambul is not a city ; 
she neither works nor thinks, nor does she create ; 
civilization knocks at her doors, lays siege to her 
streets, and she dozes and dreams in the shadow 
of her mighty mosques and pays no heed. It is 
more like a city let loose, scattered, disfigured, 
representing rather the halt of a wandering race 


than the stronghold of an established state ; a num- 


STAMBUL. 69 


ber of cities sketched in outline, an immense spec- 
tacular show, rather than a great metropolis, of 
which no just idea can be obtained without tra- 
versing every part. 

Taking, then, for our starting-point the first hill, 
we are at that point of the triangle bathed by the 
Sea of Marmora. ‘This is, so to speak, the crown of 
Stambul, an imposing district crowded with associa- 
tions and filled with magnificent buildings. Here is 
the ancient Seraglio, occupying the site where arose 
first, Byzantium, with her acropolis and temple of 
Jupiter, and then the palace of the empress Placidia 
and the baths of Arcadius; here stand the mosques 
of St. Sophia and the Sultan Ahmed; and here is the 
At-Meidan, covering the space formerly occupied by 
the Hippodrome, where once, in the midst of an 
Olympus of marble and bronze and urged on by the 
frantic cries of a multitude clad in silk and purple, 
gilded chariots were driven furiously seven times 
around the course beneath the impassive gaze of the 
pearl-bedecked emperors. Descending the first hill 
into a shallow valley, we come upon the western 
walls of the Seraglio, marking the confines of 
ancient Byzantium,* and directly before us rises the 
Sublime Porte, containing the offices of the prime 
minister, foreign minister, and minister of the inte- 
rior—silent, gloomy regions where seem gathered 


* Other authorities place the walls of ancient Byzantium con- 
siderably farther west than this point.—Trans. 


70 STAMBUL. 


all the sombreness and melancholy of the fate of the 
empire. 

From here we ascend the second hill, where rise 
the Ntri Osmaniyeh mosque (Light of Osman) and 
the Burnt Column of Constantine, formerly sur- 
mounted by a bronze statue of Apollo, whose head 
was a likeness of the great emperor himself. This 
column marked the centre of the forum, and was 
surrounded by marble porticoes, triumphal arches, 
and statues. On the farther side of this hill opens 
the Valley of Bazars, extending from the Bayezid 
mosque all the way to that of the Validéh Sultan, 
and including a huge labyrinth of covered streets 
filled with noise and confusion and crowded with 
people, from which you issue with your ears deaf- 
ened and your head in a whirl. 

Upon the summit of the third hill, overlooking 
both the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn, 
stands the gigantic rival of St. Sophia, the mosque 
of Suleiman—joy and glory of Stambul, as it is called 
by the Turkish poets—and the marvellous tower of 
the minister of war, erected on the ruins of the an- 
cient palace of the Constantines, at one time occu- 
pied by Muhammad the Conqueror, and converted 
later on into a seraglio for the old sultanas. 

Between the third and fourth hills the enormous 
aqueduct of the emperor Valens stretches like an 
atrial bridge composed of two tiers of delicate 


arches, around which vines trail and clamber, falling 





; 


scitasizse3 to amuloD towd 





1 ie + 6 corey poteaier nen: 


ee ee Bl 















the ‘ii Opal shcnete ona 
the Huret Cplatn “of: Constintine, ” 
monte hy as eee 
ie pa tee a 


the 1 Walley. of Bazine, « ) 
wuunia cl tho. onset 2 
vet-ineluding a hage labyrinth: of ervered 
‘ited with Jisive and: gonfusion, and. ¢ led 9 
vople; from which you, iasueowith your @ 
a and your head in & whirl” 
Upon ‘the summit of ‘the third Lill, 0 
but the Sea of Marmora ‘andthe Golden: E 
~avale the gigantic rival of St, Sophiaytheg 
at ~uleknan—jey and glory of Stambul-axitiews 
by the Terkish posts—aad the murvellods ae 
rly orhndwter of war, eretted on ther ain ef dheaania 
cont palaoe of the Consiantinego at aie Bie a 
pul by Muhammad the Congiens, Gad Conte 
lit on inte we séragtionfot The ‘old- sdltnimeas 4 
linweru the third and fourth hilla the cone > 
aqueduct of te emperor Valens’ stretches ‘like 
ss Burnt Column of Constantine 
arches, aroun whieh eins trail and clamber; falling » 


aaa 


= 


4 
7 : 
_ 








tty wt wet 


STAMBUL. aa 


in graceful festoons as far as the roofs of the houses 
crowded together in the valley beneath. 

Passing under the aqueduct, we now ascend the 
fourth hill. Here, on the ruins of the celebrated 
church of the Holy Apostles, founded by the em- 
press Helena and rebuilt by Theodosius, rises the 
mosque of Muhammad II., surrounded by schools, 
hospitals, and khans. Alongside the mosque are 
the slave-baz4r, the baths of Muhammad, and the 
granite column of Marcian surmounted by a marble 
capital, on which is a cippus still ornamented with 
the imperial eagles. Near by is the Et-Meidan, 
where the famous massacre of the Janissaries took 
place. 

Traversing another valley, likewise closely built 
up, we mount the fifth hill, surmounted by the 
mosque of Selim, near the site of the ancient 
cistern of St. Peter, now converted into a garden. 
Beneath us, along the shores of the Golden Horn, 
extends Fanar, the Greek quarter and seat of the 
Patriarch, where ancient Byzantium has taken 
refuge, the scene of the revolting carnage of 1821. 

Descending into a fifth valley and ascending a 
sixth hill, we find ourselves upon the territory once 
occupied by the eight cohorts of Constantine’s forty 
thousand Goths, beyond the cireuit of the earlier 
walls, which only embraced the fourth hill: this is 
the precise spot assigned to the seventh cohort, 


hence the name Hebdomon given to that quarter. 


T2 STAMBUL. 


On the sixth hill may be seen still standing the 
walls of the palace * of Constantine Porphyrogen- 
itus, where the emperors were formerly crowned, 
now called by the Turks Tekftr Serai—Palace of 
the Princes. At the foot of the hill lies Balat, the 
Ghetto of Constantinople, a filthy quarter extending 
along the banks of the Horn as far as the city-walls; 
and beyond Balat is the ancient suburb of Blacherne, 
where once arose the mighty palace with its gilded 
roofs, a favorite resort of the emperors, and famous 
for the sacredness of the relics contained in the 
church erected by the empress Pulcheria. Now the 
whole quarter is filled with decay and ruin and 
melancholy. At the Blachernz begin the turreted 
walls which extend from the Golden Horn across to 
the Sea of Marmora, enclosing the seventh hill, on 
which stood the Forum of Arcadius, and where 
may still be seen the pedestal of the column of 
Arcadius—the largest and most eastern of the hills 
of Stambul, between which and the other six flows 
the little river Lycus, which, entering the city near 
the Charsiout Gate, empties itself into the Sea of 
Marmora near the ancient gate of Thesdosius. 

From the walls of the Blachernz we overlook the 

* Prof. A. Van Millingen places the site of the Hebdomon 
Palace on the shore of the Sea of Marmora, outside the walls, near 
the village of Makri Keui; other authorities state that there are 
unanswerable arguments in favor of this view.—TRANS. 

tThe Lycus enters the city near the Gate of Pussweus and 
empties into the Sea of Marmora at Vlanga-Bostan—Trans. 


STAMBUL. ie 


suburb of Ortajilar, inclining gently to the water’s 
edge and crowned with its many gardens; beyond 
it lies that of Eyttb, the consecrated soil of the 
Mussulman, with its charming mosques and vast 
cemetery shaded by a forest of cypresses and white 
with mausoleums and tombstones; back of Eytb is 
the elevated plain which was formerly used as a 
military camp, and where the legions elevated the 
newly-made emperors upon their shields ;* and be- 
yond this, again, other villages are seen, their bright 
colors set in a framework of green woods and 
bathed by the farthermost waters of the Golden 
Horn. 

Such is Stambul, truly a divine vision. But 
when it is remembered that this huge Asiatic village 
surmounts the ruins of that second Rome, of that 
great museum of treasures stripped from all Italy, 
from Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, one’s heart sinks 
within him: the mere thought of such an accumula- 
tion of works of art makes one dizzy. And where 
are they now, those great arcades which traversed 
the city from wall to sea, those gilded domes and 
colossal equestrian statues which surmounted the 
mighty columns before baths and amphitheatres, 
those brazen sphinxes seated upon pedestals of 
porphyry, those temples and palaces which once 
reared their mighty fagades of granite in the midst 


* This ceremony more probably took place near Makri Keui on 
the Sea of Marmora.—TRrans. 


74 STAMBUL. 


of an aérial throng of marble deities and silver 
emperors? All have disappeared or been changed 
past recognition. The equestrian statues of bronze 
have been recast into guns, the copper coverings of 
the obelisks converted into money, the sarcophagi 
of the emperors turned into fountains. The church 
of St. Irene is an armory: the cistern of Constantine * 
is a workshop; the pedestal of the column of Arca- 
dius is occupied by a blacksmith; the Hippodrome 
is a horse-market; the foundations of the royal 
palaces are heaps of stones overgrown with ivy ; the 
pavements of the amphitheatre, grass-grown ceme- 
teries. A few inscriptions, half obliterated by 
fire or defaced by the simetars of the invaders, are 
all that remain to tell us that on these hills once 
stood the marvellous metropolis of the Empire of 
the East. And over all this mass of ruin and decay 
Stambul sits brooding, like some odalisque above a 


sepulchre, awaiting her hour. 


At THE HOTEL. 


And now, if my readers will kindly accompany 
me back to the hotel, we will rest for a while. The 
greater part of what I have described thus far hav- 
ing been seen by my friend and myself on the very 
day of our arrival, one may easily imagine what a 

* The Cistern Basilica, ascribed to Constantine the Great, is 


still used for its original purpose. The Cistern Philoxenes is 


occupied by silk-spinners.—TRANs. 


STAMBUL. 75 


condition our brains were in as we wended our way 
toward the hotel at about nightfall. As we passed 
through the streets neither of us opened our lips, 
but on reaching our room we dropped on the sofa, 
and, facing about, asked each other simultaneously, 

“Well, what do you think of it? How does it 
strike you?” 

“‘aney my having come here to paint !” 

‘And I to write !” 

And we laughed in each other’s faces with amused 
compassion, 

Indeed, that evening and for many days after 
His Majesty Abdul-Aziz might have offered me a 
province in Asia Minor as a reward for a half-dozen 
lines of description of the capital of his state, and I 
could not have produced thein, so true is it that you 
must get a little distance away from great objects 
before you can describe them, and if you wish to 
remember them correctly, you must first forget them 
somewhat. 

And then how could one possibly do any writing 
in a room from whose windows could be seen the 
Bosphorus, Skutari, and the summit of the Olym- 
pus? The hotel was a sight in itself. At all hours 
of the day people of every country in the world 
were coming and going through the halls and cor- 
ridors, up and down the stairs. Every evening 
twenty different nationalities were represented at 
table. I could not get the idea out of my head dur- 


76 STAMBUL. 


ing dinner that I must be an envoy sent out by the 
Italian government, and that it devolved upon me to 
introduce some grave question of international im- 
portance with the dessert. There were many charm- 
ing countenances of ladies; rough, uncombed artist 
heads; seamy adventurers lying in wait for your 
money; profiles like those of the Byzantine Virgin, 
lacking nothing but the golden nimbus; queer faces 
and sinister ones; and every day this motley com- 
pany changed. At dessert, when every one was 
talking, it sounded like the Tower of Babel. On 
the day of our arrival we struck up an acquaintance 
with a party of Russians infatuated with Constanti- 
nople, and after that every evening, when we met at 
table, we would compare notes. Each one had vis- 
ited some point of interest during the day and had 
some interesting experience to relate. This one had 
been to the top of the Serasker Tower, that one to 
the Eyfib cemetery; another had spent the day in 
Skutari; another was just back from a trip on the 
3osphorus. The conversation glowed with vivid 
descriptions, life, color, and when one’s command of 
language failed him the delicious perfumed wines of 
the Archipelago were at hand to loose his tongue 
and stimulate him to fresh efforts. There were, it is 
true, some fellow-countrymen of mine there who 
made me furiously angry—moneyed idiots who from 
soup to dessert never left off abusing Constanti- 


nople, and Providence for bringing them there. 
pie, ging 


STAMBUL. 77 


There were no sidewalks, the theatres were badly 
lighted, there was no way of passing the evening— 
apparently they had come to Constantinople to pass 
their evenings. One of them having made the trip 
on the Danube, I asked him how he had liked the 
famous river, upon which he assured me that there 
was no place on earth where they understood so well 
how sturgeon should be cooked as on the Austrian 
Royal and Imperial line of steamboats! Another 
was a charming example of the lady-killer style of 
traveller, whose main object in going about the 
world is to make conquests, carefully recorded in a 
notebook kept for the purpose. He was a tall, 
lanky blond, liberally endowed with the greatest of 
the three gifts of the Holy Spirit. Whenever the 
conversation turned upon Turkish women, he would 
fix his eyes upon his plate with a meaning smile and 
take no part in it, except for an occasional word or 
two, when he would break off suddenly, taking a sip 
of wine as though he feared he had said too much. 
He always hurried into dinner a little behind time, 
with an important air suggestive of his having been 
unavoidably detained by the Sultan, and between the 
courses would busy himself in changing mysterious- 
looking little notes from one pocket to another, evi- 
dently intended to look like billetsdoux from frail 
fair ones, but which, oddly enough, bore the unmis- 
takable stamp of hotel-bills. 


But one certainly does run across all sorts of queer 


78 STAMBUL. 


subjects in the hotels of those cosmopolitan cities : 
no one would believe it without seeing for himself. 
For instance, there was a young Hungarian there, 
about thirty years old, a tall, nervous fellow with a 
pair of diabolical eyes and a quick, feverish way of 
talking. After acting for some time as private sec- 
retary to a rich Parisian, he had enlisted among the 
French.Zouaves in Algiers, was wounded and taken 
prisoner by the Arabs, and, escaping later from Mo- 
rocco, had made his way back to Europe, where he 
hastened to The Hague, hoping to receive an appoint- 
ment as officer in the war with the Achins ; failing 
in this, he determined to enlist in the Turkish army, 
but while passing through Vienna on his way to 
Constantinople for that purpose he had gotten 
mixed up in some affair about a woman. In the duel 
which ensued he had received a ball in his neck, the 
scar from which could still be seen. Unsuccessful 
at Constantinople as well, ‘‘ What,” said he, ‘‘is 
there left for me to do ?—je suis enfant de l’aventure. 
Fight I must. Well, I have found the means of get- 
ting to India;” and he brought out a steamer ticket. 
‘‘T shall enlist as an English soldier: there is always 
some fighting going on in the interior, and that is 
all I care for. Killed? Well, what if lam? My 
lungs are all gone, anyhow.” 

Another queer creature was a Frenchman whose 
life seemed to have been one prolonged struggle 


with the postal authorities all over the world. He 


STAMBUL. 79 


had lawsuits pending with the post-office depart- 
ments of Austria, France, and England; he wrote 
protesting articles to the Neue Freie Presse, and 
fired off telegraphic messages of defiance to every 
post-office on the Continent; not a day went by 
without his having some noisy altercation at a win- 
dow where mail was received or distributed; he 
never, by any chance, received a letter on time or 
wrote one that reached its destination. At table he 
would give us an account of all his misfortunes and 
consequent disputes, invariably winding up with the 
statement that the postal system had been the means 
of shortening his life. 

Then there was a Greek lady with a strange, 
wild look and very curiously dressed: she was 
always alone, and every day would start suddenly 
up in the middle of dinner and leave the table after 
making a cabalistic sign over her plate whose sig- 
nificance no one was ever able to make out. 

I have never forgotten, either, a good-looking 
young Wallachian couple, he about twenty-five, she 
just grown, who only appeared one evening: it was 
an undoubted case of elopement, for if you looked 
fixedly at them they both turned red and appeared 
uneasy, and every time the door opened they jumped 
as though they were on springs. 

Let me see: what others can I remember? Hun- 
dreds, I suppose, were I to give my mind to it. It 


was like a magic-lantern show. 


80 STAMBUL. 


On the days when the steamers were due my 
friend and I used to find the greatest amusement in 
watching the new arrivals as they came into the 
hotel, exhausted, confused, some of them still under the 
influence of the approach to Constantinople—coun- 
tenances which seemed to say, ‘‘ What world is this ? 
What on earth have we dropped into?” One day a 
boy passed us, that instant landed; he was entirely 
beside himself with joy at having actually reached 
Constantinople, the culmination of his dreams, and 
was squeezing his father’s hand between both his 
own in an ecstasy of delight. while the father, 
equally moved by the sight of his son’s happiness, 
was saying, “Je suis heureux, de te voir heureux, 
mon cher enfant.” 

We used to pass the hot part of the day gazing 
out of our windows at the Maiden’s Tower, which 
rises up, white as snow, from a solitary rock in the 
sosphorus just opposite Skutari, and while we told 
each other stories about the legend of the young 
prince of Persia who sucked the poison from the arm 
of the beautiful sultana bitten by a snake, a little fel- 
low of five years old would chatter across at us from 
the window of an opposite house, where he appeared 
every day at the same hour. 

Everything about that hotel was queer: among 
other things, we would run every evening against 
one or two doubtful-looking characters hovering 


around in front of the entrance. They evidently 


STAMBUL. $1 


gained a livelihood by providing artists’ models, and, 
taking every one for a painter, would assail all who 
came and went with the same low-voiced inquiries : 
“A Turk? A Greek? An Armenian? A Jewess? 
A Negress ?” 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


But suppose, now, we turn our attention again to 
Constantinople itself, and wander about as unrestrain- 
edly as birds of the air? It isa place where one may 
give free rein to his caprices. You can light your 
cigar in Europe and knock the ashes off in Asia, and, 
getting up in the morning, ask yourself what part 
of the world it would be pleasant to visit during the 
day, with two continents and two seas to choose 
from. Saddled horses stand waiting for you in 
every square; boats with their sails spread are 
ready to take you anywhere you may choose to go; 
steamboats lie at every pier awaiting nothing but the 
signal to depart; kaiks manned with rowers and 
skiffs fitted with sails crowd the landing-places ; 
while an army of guides, speaking every language 
of Europe, is at your disposal fur as long a time as 
you may want any of them. Do you care to hear 
an Italian comedy? see the Dancing Dervishes? 
listen to the buffooneries of Kara-gyuz, the Turk- 
ish Punchinello? be treated to the licentious songs 
of the Parisian café chantant? watch the gymnastic 


performances of a band of gypsies? listen to an 
Vou. 1.—6 


82 STAMBUL. 


Arabian story-teller? attend a Greek theatre? hear 
an imam preach? see the Sultan pass on his way to 
the mosque? You have but to say what you prefer 
and it is ready at hand. Every nationality is at 
your service—Armenians to shave you, Hebrews to 
clean your shoes, Turks to row your boat, negroes 
to dry you after the bath, Greeks to bring your 
coffee, and one and all to cheat you. Perhaps you 
are heated from your walk? here are ices made 
from the snows of Olympus. Thirsty? you can 
drink the waters of the Nile as the Sultan does. 
Should your stomach be a little out of order, here is 
water from the Euphrates to set it straight, or, if 
you are nervous, water from the Danube. You can 
dine like the Arab of the desert or a gourmand of 
the Maison dorée. If you want to doze and drowse, 
there are the cemeteries; to be stirred up and ex- 
cited, the bridge of the Validéh Sultan; to dream 
dreams and see visions, the Bosphorus ; to pass Sun- 
day, the Archipelago of the Princes; to see Asia 
Minor, Mt. Balgurlfi, the Golden Horn, the Galata 
Tower, the world, the Serasker Tower. It is, above 
all, a city of contrasts. Things which we never 
think of connecting in our minds are seen there at 
a single glance side by side. 

Skutari is the starting-point for the caravans for 
Mecea, and also for the express trains for Brisa, the 
ancient metropolis; the Sofia railroad passes close 


by the mysterious walls of the old Seraglio; Cath- 


STAMBUL. 85 


olic priests bear the Holy Sacrament through the 
streets escorted by Turkish soldiers; the common 
people have their festivals in the cemeteries; life 
and death, sorrow and rejoicing, follow so close upon 
one another’s heels as to seem all a part of the same 
function. There are seen the movement and energy 
of London side by side with the lethargic inertia of 
the East. The greater part of existence is led in 
public before your eyes, but over the private side 
of life there hangs a close, impenetrable veil of 
mystery ; under that absolute monarchy there exists 
a liberty without bounds. 

It is impossible, for several days at least, to get a 
clear impression of anything: it seems every mo- 
ment that if the disorder is not quelled at once a 
revolution must break out. Every evening you feel, 
on reaching your lodgings, as though you had just 
returned from a long journey, and in the morning 
ask yourself incredulously if Stambul can really be 
here, close at hand. There seems to be no place 
where you can go to get your brain a little clear; 
one impression effaces another; you are torn by con- 
flicting desires ; time flies. You think you would like 
to spend the rest of your life here, and the next mo- 
ment wish you could leave to-morrow. And when it 
comes to attempting a description of this chaos—well, 
there are moments when you are strongly tempted 
to bundle together all the books and papers on your 


table and pitch the whole thing out of the window. 





ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 





ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 





Ir was not until the fourth day after our arrival 
that my friend and I attempted to introduce any- 
thing like method into our sightseeing. We were 
on the bridge quite early in the morning, still uncer- 
tain as to how we would spend the day, when Yunk 
proposed that we should make our first regular ex- 
pedition with tranquil minds and a_well-detined 
route for purposes of study and observation. ‘‘ Let 
us,” said he, ‘‘explore thoroughly the northern bank 
of the Golden Horn, if we have to walk till night- 
fall to do it; we can breakfast in some Turkish res- 
taurant, take our noonday nap under a sycamore 
tree, and come home by water in a kaik.” The sug- 
gestion being accepted, we provided ourselves with 
a stock of cigars and small change, and, after glan- 
cing over the map of the city, set forth in the di- 
rection of Galata. 

If the reader really cares to know anything about 
Constantinople, I am afraid he will have to make up 
his mind to go too, with the clear understanding, 
however, that whenever he finds himself getting 
bored he is at perfect liberty to leave us. 

87 


88 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


GALATA. 


On reaching Galata the excursion begins. Galata 
is situated on the hill which forms the promontory 
between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, the 
former site of ancient Byzantium’s great cemetery. 
It is now the ‘city ” of Constantinople. _ Its streets, 
almost all of them narrow and tortuous, are lined 
with restaurants, confectioners’, barbers’, and butchers’ 
shops, Greek and Armenian cafés, business-houses, 
merchants’ offices, workshops, counting-houses— 
dirty, ill-lighted, damp, and narrow, like the streets 
in the lower parts of London. A hurrying, pushing 
throng of foot-passengers comes and goes all day 
long, now and then crowding to right and left to 
make room in the middle of the street for the passage 
of porters, carriages, donkeys, or omnibuses. Almost 
all the business conducted in Constantinople flows 
through this quarter. Here are the Bourse, the 
custom-house, the offices of the Austrian Lloyd and 
the French express company, churches and convents, 
hospitals and warehouses. An underground rail- 
road connects Galata and Pera. Were it not for the 
ever-present turban or fez, one would hardly know 
he was in the Kast at all. On every side is heard 
lrench, Italian, and Genoese. The Genoese are, in 
fact, almost on their native soil here, and are still 
somewhat inclined to assume the airs of proprietors, 


as in the days when they opened and closed the 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 89 


harbor at their will and replied to the emperor’s 
threats with volleys from their cannon. Of this 
ancient glory, however, nothing now remains except 
afew old houses supported on great pilasters and 
heavy arches, and the ancient edifice which was 
once the residence of the Podesta. 

Old Galata has almost entirely disappeared. 
Thousands of squalid houses have been razed to the 
ground to make room for two wide streets, one of 
which mounts to the summit of the hill toward Pera, 
while the other runs parallel with the sea-wall from 
one end of Galata to the other. My friend and I 
took the latter, seeking refuge from time to time in 
some shop or other when a huge omnibus rolled by, 
preceded by Turks stripped to the waist, who 
cleared the street by means of long sticks, with 
which they laid about them. At every step some 
fresh cry assailed the ear, Turkish porters yelling, 
** Sacun ha!” (Make room!); Armenian water- 
carriers calling out, ‘ Varme su!” and_ the 
Greek, ‘ Crio nero !” Turkish donkey-drivers cry- 
ing, ‘‘ Burada !” venders of sweetmeats, ‘ Scerbet !” 
newsboys,  ‘‘ Neologos!” Frankish  cab-drivers, 
“ Guarda! guarda !” 

After walking for ten minutes we were completely 
stunned. Coming to a certain place, we noticed with 
surprise that the paving of the street suddenly 
ceased: it had evidently been removed quite re- 
cently. We stopped to examine the roadway and 


99 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


discover, if possible, some reason for this eccentricity, 
when an Italian shopkeeper, seeing what we were 
about, came to the rescue and satisfied our curiosity. 
This street, it seemed, led to the Sultan’s palace, and 
a few months previously, while the imperial cortege 
was passing along it, the horse of His Majesty 
Abdul-Aziz stumbled and fell. The good Sultan, 
much annoyed by this circumstance, commanded 
that the pavement should be removed all the way 
from the spot where the accident occurred, to the 
palace; which of course had been done. Fixing 
upon this memorable spot as the eastern boundary 
of our walk, we now turned our backs upon the 
Bosphorus and proceeded, by a series of dark, 
crooked little streets, in the direction of the 


TOWER OF GALATA. 


The city of Galata is shaped like an open fan, of 
which the tower, placed on the crest of the hill, rep- 
resents the pivot. This tower is round, very lofty, 
dark in color, and terminates in a conical point 
formed by a copper roof, directly beneath which runs 
a line of large glazed windows, forming a sort of 
gallery enclosed with glass, where a lookout is kept 
night and day ready to give warning of the first 
appearance of fire in any part of the immense city. 
The Galata of the Genoese extended as far as this 
tower, which stands on the exact line of the walls 


which once divided it from Pera—walls of which at 


aa 



















“ics alin shapkenpe ig i r 
about, came to the rescue and satishied ony ¢ 
This street, it séemed, led to the Sultan’aypala 
» fest months previously, while oa 
wae passing along~ it, the “horse of; His: 
Ahilal-Axiz stambled and ‘fell, The good: 8 
math annoyed by this circumstance, 
that tive: pavement should be xeimoved all i 
‘from the spot where the: accident  s08t 
palach; which of coutst had ieen Won 

apon this meniurable spatsas the wustoep (hem 
of oar | walk, we nuw thened our backs pong 
Bosphoras and procended, by a: a 

érooked Kittle streets), in the: direction. vie 


4 


+s 


TOWER oF GALATA.! 

The city of Galata dé shaped dike an fany 
whieh the tiwer) placed on the ¢rest of the Hill, im 
resents the. pivot. "This tewersis round, vory laity; 
Aatk “jn color, and terminates, ing conigal) pene 
formed: bya copper roof, dirvetly beneath which my 
» Tne of large glased ‘windows tetiieg & sau 
ery enclosed with glass, where Tint -tatege 
vi: und day ready to. give wariiig Gf the tre 
appoiraned OF fire in any part of the immense clfya7s 
iio Galata of the Genoese extended’ as far as this i 
co which stentoweir Ot Gatata line of the walle 
which coco divided it ftom Pora—walls of witch iat 











ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 91 


present no trace remains ;* nor is the present tower 
the same as that ancient Tower of Christ, erected in 
memory of the Genoese who fell in battle, having 
been rebuilt by Mahmid II., and prior to that restored 
by Selim IIL.,+ but it is none the less a monument to 
the glory of Genoa, and one upon which no Italian 
can gaze without feeling some pride at the thought 
of that handful of soldiers, merchants, and sailors 





haughty, audacious, proud, stubborn—who for 
centuries floated the flag of the mother republic from 
its summit and treated with the emperors of the 
East as equals. 

Immediately beyond the tower we came upon a 
Mussulman cemetery. 


THE GALATA CEMETERY. 


This is called the Galata Cemetery. It is a great 
forest of cypress trees, extending from the summit 
of the hill of Pera all the way down the steep de- 
clivity, nearly to the edge of the Golden Horn, and 
casting its thick shadows over myriads of little 
stone and marble pillars—inclining at every angle 


* A few traces of these walls may still be seen near the Galata 
Tower.—TRANS. 

+ The Galata Tower, called in the Middle Ages the Tower 
of Christ or of the Cross, was built in 1348, probably on the foun- 
dations of an earlier Byzantine tower ascribed to Anastasius Di- 
corus, and in the present century was repaired by Mahmad Il.— 
TRANS. 


92 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


and scattered irregularly over the hillside. Some of 
these are surmounted by round turbans on which 
may be seen traces of coloring and inscriptions ; 
others are pointed at the top, many lie prone upon 
their sides, while from others the turbans have been 
cut clean off, making one fancy that they belong to 
Janissaries, whom, even after death, Sultan Mahmitid 
took occasion to degrade and insult. The greater 
part of the graves are merely indicated by square 
mounds of earth, having a stone at either end, upon 
which, according to Mussulman belief, the two 
angels Nekir and Munkir take their seats to judge 
the soul of the departed. Here and there may be 
seen small enclosures surrounded by a low wall or 
railing, in the middle of which stands a column sur- 
mounted by a huge turban, and all around it other 
smaller columns: this is the grave of some pasha or 
person of distinction buried in the midst of his 
wives and children. Footpaths wind in and out 
among the graves and trees, crossing and recrossing 
one another in all directions from one end of the 
cemetery to the other. A Turk seated in the shade 
smokes tranquilly ; boys run about and chase each 
other among the tombs; here and there cows are 
grazing, and a multitude of turtle-doves bill and coo 
among the branches of the cypress trees; groups 
of veiled women pass from time to time; and 
through the leaves and branches glimpses are 
caught of the blue waters of the Golden Horn 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 93 


streaked with long white reflections from the mina- 
rets of Stambul. 


PERA. 


Coming out of the cemetery, we passed once more 
close to the base of the Galata Tower and took the 
principal street of Pera. Pera lies more than three 
hundred feet above the level of the sea, is bright 
and cheerful, and overlooks both the Golden Hgrn 
and the Bosphorus. It is the ‘‘ West End” of the 
European colony, the quarter where are to be found 
the comforts and elegancies of life. The street which 
we now followed is lined on both sides with English 
and French hotels, cafés of the better sort, bril- 
liantly lighted shops, theatres, foreign consulates, 
clubs, and the residences of the various ambassa- 
dors, among which towers the great stone palace of 
the Russian embassy, commanding Galata, Pera, and 
the village of Fundukli on the shore of the Bos- 
phorus, for all the world like a fortress. 

The crowds which swarm and throng these streets 
are altogether unlike those of Galata. Hardly any but 
stiff hats are to be seen, unless we except the masses 
of flowers and feathers which adorn the heads of the 
ladies: here are Greek, Italian, and French dandies, 
inerchant princes, officials of the various legations, 
foreign navy officers, ambassadors’ equipages, and 
doubtful-looking physiognomies of every nationality. 
Turkish men stand admiring the wax heads in the 


94 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


hairdressers’ windows, and the women pause open- 
mouthed before the showcases of the milliners’ 
shops. The Europeans talk and laugh more loudly 
here than elsewhere, cracking jokes in the middle of 
the street, while the Turks, feeling themselves, as it 
were, foreigners, carry their heads less high than in 
the streets of Stambul. 

As we walked along my friend suddenly called 
my attention to the view, behind us, of Stambul. 
Sure enough, there lay the Seraglio hill, St. Sophia, 
and the minarets of the mosque of Sultan Ahmed, 
all faintly veiled in blue mist—an altogether differ- 
ent world from the one in which we stood. ‘ And 
now,” said he, “‘ look there!” Following the direc- 
tion of his finger, I read the titles of some of the 


books displayed in the window of an adjacent sta- 





tioner’s shop—La Dame aux Camelias, Madame Bo- 
vary, Mademoiselle Giraud ma Femme—and expe- 
rienced so curious a sensation at the rapid and 
violent contrast thus presented that for some mo- 
ments I was obliged to stand quite still in order to 
adjust my ideas. At another time I stopped my 
companion to make him look in a wonderful café we 
were passing. It was a long, wide, dim corridor, 
ending in a large open window, through which we 
beheld, at what seemed to be an immense distance, 
Skutari flooded with sunlight. 

When we had proceeded for some distance along 


the Grande Rue de Pera and nearly reached the end, we 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 95 


were startled by hearing a voice, quite close at hand, 
exclaiming in tones of thunder, ‘‘ Adele, I love thee! 
I love thee better than life itself! I love thee even 
as much as it is given to men to love upon earth!” 
We gazed at one another in astonishment. Where 
on earth did the voice come from? Looking about 
us, we discovered on one side of the street a wooden 
fence through the cracks of which a large garden 
could be seen filled with benches, and at the farther 
end a stage on which a troupe of actors were re- 
hearsing the performance for the evening. A Turk- 
ish lady not far from us stood peeping in as well, 
and laughed with great enjoyment at the scene, 
while an old Turk, passing by, shook his head dis- 
approvingly. Suddenly with a loud shriek the lady 
fled down the street; other women in the neighbor- 
hood echoed the shriek and turned their backs rap- 
idly. What could have happened? Turning around, 
we beheld a Turk about fifty years old, well known 
throughout all Constantinople, who elected to go 
about the streets clad with the same severe sim- 
plicity which the famous monk Turi was so anxious 
to impose upon all good Mussulmen during the reign 
of Muhammad IV.; that is, stark naked from head 
to foot. The wretched creature advanced, leaping 
on the stones, shouting and breaking forth into loud 
bursts of laughter, followed by a crowd of ragamuffins 
making a noise like that of the infernal regions. 


‘Tt is to be devoutly hoped that he will be promptly 


96 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


arrested,” said I te the doorkeeper of the theatre. 
‘“Not the smallest likelihood of anything of the 
sort,” replied he; ‘he has been going about like 
that for months.” In the mean while I could see 
people all the way down the street coming to the 
doors of the shops, women getting out of the way, 
young girls covering their faces, doors being shut, 
heads disappearing from the windows. And this 
thing goes on every day, and no one so much as 
gives it a thought! 

On issuing from the Grande Rue de Pera we find 
ourselves opposite another large Mussulman ceme- 
tery shaded by groves of cypress trees and enclosed 
between high walls. Had we not been informed 
later on of the reason for those walls, we should 
certainly never have guessed it. They had evidently 
been quite recently erected, to prevent, it would 
seem, the woods consecrated to the repose of the 
dead from being converted into a_ trysting-spot 
where the soldiers from the neighboring artillery 
barracks were wont to mect their sweethearts. <A 
little farther on we came upon the barracks, a 
huge, solid, rectangular structure, built by Shalil 
Pasha in the Moorish style of the Turkish Renais- 
sance, its great portal flanked by light columns and 
surmounted by the crescent and golden star of 
Muhammad, and having balconies and small windows 


ornamented with carving and arabesques. Li front 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 97 


of the barracks runs the Rue Dgiedessy, a continua- 
tion of the Grande Rue de Pera, on the other side 
of which stretches an extensive parade-ground ; 
beyond that, again, are other suburbs. During the 
week this neighborhood is buried in the most pro- 
found silence and solitude, but on Sunday afternoons 
it is crowded with people and equipages, all the gay 
world of Pera pouring out to scatter itself among the 
beer-gardens, cafés, and pleasure-resorts which lie 
beyond the barracks. It was in one of these cafés 
that we broke our fast—the café Belle Vue, a resort 
of the flower of Pera society, and well deserving its 
name, since from its immense gardens, extending 
like a terrace over the summit of the hill, you have, 
spread out before you, the large Mussulman village 
of Fundukli, the Bosphorus covered with ships, the 
coast of Asia dotted over with gardens and villages, 


a lux- 





Skutari with her glistening white mosques 
uriance of color, green foliage, blue sea, and sky all 
bathed in light, which form a scene of intoxicating 
beauty. We arose at last unwillingly, and both of 
us felt like niggards as we threw our eight wretched 
sous on the counter, the bare price of a couple of 
cups of coffee after having been treated to that 


celestial vision. 


THE GREAT FIELD OF THE DEAD. 


Coming out of the Belle Vue, we found ourselves 
in the midst of the Grand Champs des Morts, where 
Vor. I.—7 


98 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


the dead of every faith except the Jewish are buried 
in distinct cemeteries. It is a vast, thick wood of 
cypress, sycamore, and acacia trees, in whose shadow 
are thousands of white tombstones, having the 
appearance, at a little distance, of the ruins of some 
great building. In between the trunks of the trees 
distant views are caught of the Bosphorus and the 
Asiatic coast. Broad paths wind in and out among 
the graves, along which groups of Greeks and Arme- 
nians may be seen passing to and fro. On some of 
the tombs Turks are seated cross-legged, gazing 
fixedly at the Bosphorus. One experiences the 
same delicious sense of refreshment and peace and 
rest, as on entering a vast, dim cathedral on some 
hot summer’s day. 

We paused in the Armenian cemetery. The stones 
here are all large, flat, and covered with inscriptions 
cut in the regular and elegant characters of the 
Armenian language, and on almost every one there 
is some figure to indicate the trade or occupation of 
the deceased. There are hammers, chairs, pens, 
coffers, and necklaces; the banker is represented by 
a pair of weights and scales, the priest by a mitre, 
the barber has his basin, the surgeon a lancet. On 
one stone we saw a head detached from the body, 
which was streaming with blood: it was the grave 
of either a murdered man or else one who had been 
executed. Alongside it was stretched an Armenian, 


sound asleep, with his head thrown back. 


ALONG TITE GOLDEN ILIORN. 99 


We passed on next to the Mussulman cemetery. 
Here were to be seen the same multitude of little 
columns, either in rows or standing about in irregu- 
lar groups, some of them painted and gilded on top, 
those of the women culminating in ornamental 
bunches of flowers carved in relief, many of them 
surrounded with shrubs and flowering plants. As 
we stood looking at one of them, two Turks, leading 
a child by the hand, passed down the path to a tomb 
some little distance off, on reaching which they 
paused, and, having spread out the contents of a 
package one of them carried under his arm, they 
seated themselves on the tombstone and began to eat. 
I stood watching them. When the meal was ended 
the elder of the two wrapped what appeared to be a 
fish and a piece of bread in a scrap of paper, and 
with a gesture of respect placed it in a hole beside 
the grave. This having been done, they both lit 
their pipes and fell to smoking tranquilly, while the 
child ran up and down and played among the trees. 
It was explained to me later that the fish and bread 
were that portion of their repast which Turks 
leave as a sign of affection for relatives probably 
not long dead; the hole was the small opening 
made in the ground near the head of every Mussul- 
man grave in order that the departed may hear the 
sobs and lamentations of their dear ones left on 
earth, and occasionally receive a few drops of rose- 


water or enjoy the scent of the flowers. Their 


100 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


mortuary smoke concluded, the two pious Turks 
arose, and, taking the child once more by the hand, 


disappeared among the cypress trees. 


PANKALDI. 


On coming out of the cemetery we found our- 
selves in another Christian quarter—Pankaldi— 
traversed by wide streets lined with new buildings 
and surrounded by gardens, villas, hospitals, and 
large barracks. This is the suburb of Constanti- 
nople farthest away from the sea. After having seen 
which, we turned back to redescend to the Golden 
Horn. On reaching the last street, however, we 
came unexpectedly upon a new and _ strikingly 
solemn scene. It was a Greek funeral procession, 
which advanced slowly toward us between a dense 
and perfectly silent crowd of people packed together 
on either side of the street. Heading the proces- 
sion came a group of Greek priests in their long em- 
broidered garments; then the archimandrite wearing 
a crown upon his head and a long cape embroidered 
in gold; behind him were a number of young ec- 
clesiastics clad in brilliant colors, and a group of 
friends and relatives, all wearing their richest gar- 
ments, and in their midst the bier, covered with 
flowers, on which lay the body of a young girl of 
about fifteen dressed in satin and resplendent with 
jewels. The face was exposed—such a dear little 


face, white as snow, the mouth slightly contracted as 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 101 


if in pain, and two long tresses of beautiful black 
hair lying across the shoulders and breast. The 
bier passes, the crowd closes in behind the proces- 
sion, which is quickly lost to sight, and we find our- 
selves standing, sobered and thoughtful, in the 


midst of the deserted street. 


San DMITRI. 


We now descended the hill, and, after crossing the 
dry bed of a torrent and climbing up the ascent on 
the other side, found ourselves in another suburb, San 
Dmitri. Here almost the entire population is Greek. 
On every side may be seen black eyes and fine aquiline 
noses; patriarchal-looking old men and slight, sinewy 
young ones; girls with hair hanging down their 
backs, and bright intelligent-looking lads, who dis- 
port themselves in the middle of the street among 
the chickens and pigs, filling the air with their mu- 
sical cries and harmonious inflections. We ap- 
proached a group of these boys who were engaged 
in pelting one another with pebbles, all chattering at 
the same time. One of them, about eight years old, 
the most impish-looking little rascal of the lot, kept 
tossing his little fez in the air, every few minutes 
ealling out, “Zito! zito!” (Hurrah! hurrah!) 
Suddenly he turned to another little chap seated on 
a doorstep near by, and cried, “‘ Checchino ! buttami 
la palla !” (Checchino! throw me the ball). Seizing 
him by the arm as though | were a gypsy kidnapper, I 


102 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


said, “‘So you are an Italian?”—‘ Oh no, sir,” he 
answered; ‘I belong to Constantinople.”—‘ Then 
who taught you to speak Italian ?”—‘ Oh that?” 
said he; ‘‘why, my mother ”—‘ And where is your 
mother?” Just at that moment, though, a woman 
carrying a baby in her arms approached, all smiles, 
and explained to me that she was from Pisa, that she 
and her husband, an engraver from Leghorn, had been 
in Constantinople for eight years past, and that the 
boy was theirs. Had this good woman had a hand- 
some matronly face, a turretted crown upon her head, 
and a long mantle floating majestically from her 
shoulders, she could not have brought the image of 
Italy more forcibly before my eyes and mind. ‘ And 
how do you like living here ?” I asked her. ‘ What 
do you think of Constantinople on the whole ?”— 
‘““How can I tell?” said she, smiling artlessly. 
“It seems to be like a city that—well, to tell you 
the truth, I can never get it out of my head that it 
is the last day of the Carnival ;” and then, giving 
free rein to her Tuscan speech, she explained to us 
that ‘the Mussulman’s Christ is Mahomet,” that a 
Turk is allowed to marry four wives, that the Turk- 
ish language is admirable for those who understand 
it, and various other pieces of equally valuable in- 
formation, but which, told in that language and amid 
those strange surroundings, gave us more pleasure 
than the choicest bits of news—so much so, indeed, 


that on parting we were fain to leave a small mone- 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 103 


tary expression of our esteem in the hand of the lit- 
tle lad, and exclaimed simultaneously as we walked 
off, ‘‘ After all, there is nothing that sets one up so 


as a mouthful of Italian now and then.” 


TOTAOLA. 


Recrossing the little valley, we came to another 
Greek quarter, Totaola, where our stomachs gave us 
a hint that this would be a favorable moment in 
which to investigate the interior of one of those 
innumerable restaurants of Constantinople, all of 
which, built on the same plan, present the same ex- 
traordinary appearance. There is one huge room, 
which might on occasion be turned into a theatre, 
lighted, as a rule, only by the door through which 
you enter; around it runs a high wooden gallery fur- 
nished with a balustrade. On one side is an enor- 
mous stove at which a brigand in shirt-sleeves fries 
fish, bastes the roast, mixes sauces, and devotes him- 
self generally to the business of shortening human 
life ; at a counter on the other side another forbid- 
ding-looking individual serves out red and white 
wine in glasses with handles; in the middle and 
front of the apartment are low stools without backs 
and little tables scarcely higher than the stools, look- 
ing for all the world like cobblers’ benches. We 
entered with some slight feeling of hesitation, not 
knowing whether the groups of Greeks and Arme- 
nians of the lower orders already assembled might 


104 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


not evince some disagreeable signs of curiosity ; on 
the contrary, however, no one deigned so much as 
to look at us. It is my belief that the population of 
Constantinople is the least inquisitive of any on the 
face of the globe. You must be the Sultan at least, 
or else promenade through the streets without any 
clothes on, like the madman of Pera, for people to 
show that they are so much as aware of your exist- 
ence. ‘Taking our seats in a corner, we waited some 
time, but, as nothing happened, we finally concluded 
that it must be the custom in Constantinopolitan res- 
taurants for every one to look out for himself. Ad- 
yancing then boldly to the stove, we each got a por- 
tion of the roast—Heaven only knows from what 
quadruped—and then, providing ourselves with a 
glass apiece of the resinous Tenedos wine, we re- 
turned to our corner, spread the repast out on a 
table barely reaching to our knees, and, with a side- 
long glance at one another, fell to and consumed the 
sacrifice. After resignedly settling the account we 
walked out in perfect silence, afraid on our lives to 
open our lips for fear a bray or a bark should escape 
them, and resumed our walk in the direction of the 


Golden Horn, somewhat chastened in spirit. 


Kassim Pasta. 
A walk of ten minutes brought us once more into 
real Turkey, the great Mussulman suburb of Kassim 


Pasha, a city in itself, filled with mosques and der- 








Panorama of the Arsenal and Golden Horn 









wo 
Ane 


pon lemeetA st 





oo 


tag 


iH ase 


i 
- 


¥ 
: 
= 
: a 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 105 


vishes’ monasteries, which, with its kitchen-gardens 
and shaded grounds, covers an entire hill and valley, 
and, extending all the way to the Golden Horn, in- 
cludes all of the ancient bay of Mandsacchio, from 
the cemetery of Galata quite to the promontory 
which overlooks the Balata quarter on the other 
shore. From the heights of Kassim Pasha a most 
exquisite view is to be had. Beneath, on the water’s 
edge, stands the enormous arsenal of Tersane ; 
beyond it extends for more than a mile a labyrinth 
of dry-docks, workshops, open squares, storehouses, 
and barracks, skirting all that part of the Golden 
Horn which serves as a port of war. The admiralty 
building, airy and graceful, seeming to float upon the 
surface of the water, stands out clearly against the 
dark-green background of the Galata cemetery ; 
in the harbor innumerable small steamboats and 
kaiks, crowded with people, shoot in and out 
among the stationary iron-clads and old frigates of 
the Crimea; on the opposite bank lie Stambul, the 
aqueduct of Valens, bearing aloft its mighty arches 
into the blue heavens above, the great mosques of 
Muhammad and Suleiman, and innumerable houses 
and minarets. In order to take in all the details of 
this scene we seated ourselves in front of a Turkish 
café and sipped the fourth or fifth of the dozen or 
more cups of coffee which, whether you wish to or 
not, you are bound to imbibe in the course of every 


day of your stay in Constantinople. This café was 


106 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


a very unpretending place, but, like all such estab- 
lishments—Turkish ones, that is—most original, 
probably differing but little from those very first 
ones started in the time of Suleiman the Great, or 
those others into which the fourth Murad used to 
burst so unexpectedly, cimeter in hand, when he 
made his nocturnal rounds for the purpose of 
wreaking summary vengeance upon venders of 
the forbidden beverage. What numbers of im- 
perial edicts, theological disputes, and bloody quar- 
rels has this ‘enemy of sleep and fruitfulness,” as it 
has been termed by ulemas of the strict school, 
“genius of dreams and quickener of the mind,” as 
the more liberal sects have it, been the cause of! 
And now, after love and tobacco, it is the most 
highly prized of all luxuries in the estimation of 
every poor Osman. To-day coffee is drunk on the 
summits of the Galata and Serasker towers; you 
find it on the steamboats, in the cemeteries, in the 
barber-shops, the baths, the bazirs. In whatever 
part of Constantinople you may happen to be, if you 
merely call out, ‘‘Café-gi!” without taking the 
trouble to leave your seat, in three minutes a cup is 


steaming before you. 


THE CAFE. 
Our café was a large whitewashed room, with a 
wooden wainscoting five or six feet high, and a low 


divan running around the four walls. In one corner 


ALONG TIE GOLDEN HORN. 107 


stood a stove at which a Turk with a hooked nose 
was making coffee in little brass coffee-pots, from 
which he poured it into tiny cups, adding the sugar 
himself: this is the universal custom in Constanti- 
nople. The coffee is made fresh for every new- 
comer and handed to him already sweetened, to- 
gether with a glass of water, which the Turk always 
drinks before approaching the cup to his lips. At 
one side hung a small looking-glass, and beside it a 
rack filled with razors: almost all the cafés in Con- 
stantinople are barber-shops as well, the head of 
the establishment combining these duties with those 
of leech and dentist, and operating upon his victims 
in the same apartment as that in which his guests 
are drinking their coffee. On the opposite wall 
hung another rack filled with crystal narghilehs, 
their long, flexible tubes wound around like snakes, 
and terra-cotta pipes with cherry-wood stems. Five 
Turks were seated on the divan thoughtfully smok- 
ing their narghilehs, and in front of the door three 
others sat upon very low straw-bottomed stools, their 
backs against the wall, side by side, with pipes in 
their mouths; a youth belonging to the establish- 
ment was engaged in shaving the head of a big, fat 
dervish clad in a camel’s-hair tunic. No one looked 
up as we took our seats, no one spoke, and, with the 
exception of the coffee-maker and the young man, 
no one made the slightest movement of any sort. 
The gurgling sound of the water in the narghilehs, 


108 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


something like the purring of cats, was all that 
broke the profound stillness. Every one gazed 
fixedly into vacancy, with faces absolutely devoid 
of all expression, like an assembly of wax figures. 
How many just such scenes as this have impressed 
themselves indelibly upon my mind! <A wooden 
house, a cross-legged Turk, broad shafts of light, 
an exquisite far-away view, profound silence,—there 
you have Turkey. Every time I hear that word 
pronounced these objects rise up before me in the 
same way that one sees a canal and a windmill when 


any one mentions Holland. 


PIALE PASHA. 


From there, skirting along the edge of a large 
Mussulman cemetery which extends from the top of 
the Kassim Pasha hill to Tersaéne, we proceeded 
again in a northerly direction, and, descending into 
the valley, reached the little district of Piale Pasha, 
almost buried in her trees and gardens, and paused 
before the mosque from which the quarter takes its 
name. It is white and surmounted by six graceful 
domes; the courtyard is surrounded by arches sup- 
ported on airy columns; there is a charming mina- 
ret, and surrounding the whole a circle of enormous 
cypress trees. At that hour all the neighboring 
houses were tightly closed, the streets empty, and 
even the courtyard of the mosque itself deserted ; 


the drowsiness and heat of noonday brooded over 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 109 


everything, and, except for the dull buzzing of the 
insects, not a sound was to be heard. Looking at 
our watches, we found it wanted just three minutes 
to twelve o’clock, one of the Mussulman’s five can- 
onical hours, at which the muczzin, appearing upon 
the gallery of every minaret, announces to the four 
quarters of the globe the religious formula of Islam. 
We were perfectly well aware that in all Constanti- 
nople there is not a minaret upon which, punctual as 
clockwork, the messenger of the Prophet does not 
appear at his appointed hour; at the same time we 
could hardly bring ourselves to believe that in that 
farthest outpost of the immense city, on that solitary, 
out-of-the-way mosque as well, and amid that pro- 
found silence and apparent desertion, the figure 
would rise up, the message be delivered. Watch in 
hand, I stood waiting with lively curiosity the stroke 
of the hour, glancing now at the minute-hand, now 
at the small doorway opening out on the gallery of 
the minaret, about as high from the ground as the 
fourth story of an ordinary house. Presently the 
minute-hand reaches the sixtieth little black speck : 
no one appeared. ‘“ He is not there,” said I.‘ There 
he is,” replied Yunk; and, true enough, there he 
stood. The balustrade of the gallery concealed all 
his person but the face, of which the distance was 
too great to distinguish the features clearly. For a 
few seconds he stood perfectly motionless: then, 


closing both ears with his fingers and raising his 


110 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


face toward heaven, he chanted slowly, in high, 
piercing accents, solemnly, mournfully, the sacred 
words which at the same moment were resounding 
from every minaret in Africa, Asia, and Europe: 
‘God is great! there is but one God! Mahomet is 
his Prophet! Come to prayer! come and be saved! 
God is great! there is none other! Come to prayer!” 
Then, proceeding a part of the way around the bal- 
cony, he repeated the same words toward the north, 
then to the west, and then to the east, and finally 
disappeared as he had come. At the same instant 
we caught the faint far-away tones of a similar voice 
in the distance, sounding like some one calling for 
help. Then all was still, and we two were left stand- 
ing motionless and silent, with a vague feeling of 
hopelessness, as though those two voices had been 
addressed solely to us, calling upon us to fall down 
and pray, and with the disappearance of the vision 
we had been left alone in that still valley, like 
beings abandoned by God and man. No tolling or 
chime of bells has ever appealed to me so strongly, 
and I then understood for the first time why it was 
that Mahomet decided in favor of the human voice 
as a means of summoning the faithful to their de- 
votions, rather than the ancient trumpet of the 
Israclites or tymbal of the Christians. He hesitated 
for some time before making up his mind, so that 
the entire Orient narrowly escaped wearing an 


aspect totally different from that of the present day. 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. Pl 


Had he selected the tymbal, which must inevitably 
have become a bell later on, it is very certain that 
the minaret would have gone, and with it would 
have disappeared for ever one of the most charming 
and distinctive features of both town and country in 


the East. 


OxK-MEIDAN. 


Mounting the hill to the west of Piale Pasha, we 
reached a vast open plain from which there is a view 
of Stambul and the entire length of the Golden 
Horn from Eytb to Seraglio Point, four miles of 
mosque and garden—-a scene so overpeweringly 
beautiful that one is tempted to fall upon his knees 
as before some heavenly vision. On the Ok-Meidan 
(Place of Arrows) the sultans used formerly to prac- 
tise shooting with the bow and arrow, after the 
custom of the Persian kings. A number of small 
stone obelisks and pillars scattered about irregularly 
bear inscriptions each to the effect that upon that spot 
some imperial arrow has fallen. The beautiful kiosk 
is still standing from whose tribune the sultan was 
wont to draw his bow; on the right were drawn up 
along line of pashas and beys, living exclamation- 
points indicative of the admiration excited by their 
lord’s dexterity ; to the left stood a group of twelve 
pages belonging to the imperial family, whose duty 
it was to run after and pick up the arrows, marking 


the spots on which they fell; hidden behind the sur- 


112 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


rounding trees and shrubbery a few venturesome 
Turks peeped out who had stolen thither to gaze 
fearfully upon the sublime countenance of the 
vicar of God; while in the tribune, in the attitude 
of some haughty athlete, stood the sultan Mahmid, 
the mightiest archer of the empire, his flashing eye 
compelling the bystanders to avert their gaze, and 
that famous beard, black as the raven’s feathers of 
Mt. Taurus, gleaming afar against the white tunic 
all spotted with the blood of the Janissaries. All 
this has now changed and become utterly common- 
place. The Sultan practises with a revolver in the 
courtyard of his palace, while Ok-Meidan is used 
by the infantry for target-practice. On one side 
stands a dervish monastery, on the other a solitary 
café, and the whole place is as melancholy and de- 


serted as a steppe. 


Pirt PASHA. 


Descending from the Ok-Meidan toward the 
Golden Horn, we came to another little Mussulman 
quarter called Piri Pasha, possibly after the famous 
vizier of the time of the first Selim, who educated 
Suleiman the Magnificent. Piri Pasha faces the 
Jewish quarter of Balata, situated on the opposite 
bank of the Golden Horn. We met nothing as we 
passed through it except a few dogs and occasionally 
an old Turkish beggar; we did not regret this, 


however, as it gave us an opportunity to examine its 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 113 


construction at our leisure. It is a very curious fact 
that on entering any quarter of Constantinople, after 
having seen it from the water or some adjacent 
height, you invariably experience precisely the same 
shock of astonishment as on going behind the scenes 
of a theatre after having witnessed some beautiful 
spectacular effect from the stalls. You are filled 
with amazement to find that the combination of all 
these mean and ugly objects is what has just pro- 
duced so charming a whole. I suppose there is no 
other city in the world whose beauty is so entire- 
ly dependent on general effect as Constantinople. 
Seen from Balata, Piri Pasha is the prettiest little 
village imaginable, smiling, radiant with color, 
decked with foliage, its charming image reflected in 
the Golden Horn like the features of some beautiful 
nymph, awakening dreams of love and pleasure in 
the breast. Enter it and the whole thing changes : 
you find nothing but rude, mean little houses colored 
like booths at a country fair, filthy courts looking 
like witches’ dens, groups of dusty fig and cypress 
trees, gardens littered with rubbish, narrow, deserted 
streets—dirt, misery, wretchedness. But run down 
the hillside, jump into a kaik, and give half a dozen 
strokes with the oars, behold! the fairy city has re- 
appeared, beautiful and fascinating as before. 


HASKEUI. 


Continuing along the shore of the Golden Horn, we 
Vox. 1.—8 


114 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


descended into another suburb, vast, populous, wear- 
ing an entirely different aspect from the last, and 
where we saw quite plainly, after taking half a dozen 
steps, that we were no longer among Mussulmans. On 
all sides dirty children covered with sores were roll- 
ing about on the ground; bent, ragged old crones sat 
working with their skinny fingers in the doorways, 
through which glimpses could be caught of dusky in- 
teriors cluttered up with heaps of old iron and rags ; 
men clad in long, dirty cloaks, with tattered hand- 
‘kerchiefs wound around their heads, skulked along 
close to the wall, glancing furtively about them ; 
thin, meagre faces peered out of the windows as we 
went by; old clothes dangled from cords suspended 
between the houses; mud and litter everywhere. It 
was Haskeui, the Jewish quarter, the Ghetto of the 
northern shore of the Golden Horn, facing that on 
the other shore, with which, at the time of the 
Crimean War, it was connected by a wooden bridge, 
all traces of which have since disappeared. From 
here stretches another long chain of arsenals, mili- 
tary schools, barracks, and drill-grounds, extending 
nearly all the way to the end of the Golden Horn. 
But of these we saw nothing, our heads and our legs 
having given out equally. Of all that we had seen, 
there only remained a confused jumble of places 
and people; it seemed as though we had been tray- 
elling for a week, and we thought of far-away Pera 


with a slight sensation of home-sickness. At this 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 115 


point we should certainly have turned back had not 
our solemn compact made upon the bridge come into 
our minds, and Yunk, according to his helpful cus- 
tom, revived my drooping spirits by chanting the 


erand march from Aida. 


Kaui OGHLU. 


Forward, then! Traversing another Turkish ceme- 
tery and climbing still another hill, we found ourselves 
in the suburb of Kaliji Oghlu, inhabited by a mixed 
population. In this little city, at every street-corner, 
you come upon a new race or a new religion. You 
mount, descend, climb up, pass among tombs and 
mosques, churches and synagogues. You skirt gar- 
dens and cemeteries, encounter handsome Armenian 
women with fine matronly figures, slender Turkish 
ones who steal a look at you through their veils; all 
around you hear Greek, Armenian, Spanish—the 
Spanish of the Jews—and you walk on and on and 
on. ‘After all, you know,” we say to one another, 
‘Constantinople must end somewhere.” Everything 
on earth has an end. We have been told so ever 
since we were children. On and on and on, and 
now the houses of Kaliji Oghlu grow fewer, woods 
begin to appear; there is but one more group of 
dwellings. Quickening our pace, we passed them by, 


and at last reached— 


116 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


SuDLUDJI. 


Merciful Heavens! what did we reach? Noth- 
ing in the world but another suburb, the Christian 
settlement of Sudludji, built on a hill surrounded by 
woods and cemeteries, the same hill at whose base 
was formerly one end of the only bridge which in 
ancient times connected the two banks of the Golden 
Horn. But this suburb, by a merciful providence, 
was actually the last, and our excursion had finally 
come to an end. Quitting the houses, we cast about 
us for some spot where we might seek a little much- 
needed repose. Back of the village there rises a 
bare, steep ascent, up which dragging our weary 
limbs, we found before us the largest Jewish ceme- 
tery in Constantinople. It is a vast open space, filled 
with innumerable flat gravestones, presenting the 
desolate appearance of a city destroyed by an earth- 
quake, and unrelieved by a tree or flower or blade 
of grass, or even so much as a footpath—a desert 
solitude as depressing to look upon as the scene of 
some great disaster. Seating ourselves upon one of 
the tombs, we turned in the direction of the Golden 
Horn, and while resting our tired bodies feasted our 
eyes upon the superb panorama which lay spread out 
before us. At our feet lay Sudludji, Kaliji Oghlu, 
Haskeui, Piri Pasha, a chain of picturesque villages 
set in the midst of green gardens and cemeteries 


and blue water; to the left, the solitary Ok-Meidan 


ALONG TITE GOLDEN HORN. DAZ 


and the hundred minarets of Kassim Pasha, and 
farther on the huge, indistinct outlines of Stam- 
bul; beyond, fading away into the distant sky, 
the blue line of the mountains of Asia; directly 
facing us on the opposite shore of the Golden Horn 
lay the mysterious quarter of Kytb, whose gorgeous 
mausoleums, marble mosques, deserted streets, and 
shady inclines, dotted with tombstones, could be 
clearly distinguished from where we sat, rural-look- 
ing solitudes full of a melancholy charm; to the 
right of Eyib lay still other villages covering the 
hillsides and peeping at their own reflections in the 
water; and then the final bend of the Golden Horn, 
lost to view between two lofty banks covered with 
trees and flowers. 

Half asleep, exhausted in mind and body, we sat 
there, allowing our eyes to wander at will over the 
whole exquisite scene ; put all we had done and seen 
to music, and chanted antiphonally a rigmarole of I 
don’t know what nonsense; discussed the history of 
the dead man upon whose tomb we were sitting ; 
poked into an ant-hill with bits of straw; talked of 
all manner of foolish and irrelevant things; asked 
ourselves from time to time if it were really true 
that we were in Constantinople ; reflected upon the 
shortness of life and vanity of all human desires, at 
the same time drawing in deep breaths of pleasure 
and delight; but away down in the bottom of our 


secret souls we each realized through it all that noth- 


118 ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 


ing on earth, no matter how charming and beautiful 
it may be, can quite satisfy a man, provided he does 
not while enjoying it feel in his the hand of the 
woman he loves. 


In A Kat. 


Toward sunset we descended to the Golden Horn, 
and, taking our places in a four-oared kiik, had 
scarcely pronounced the word “Galata!” before 
the graceful little boat was already in mid-stream. 
Of all varieties of boats which skim over the surface 
of the water, there is certainly none so delightful as 
the kaik. Longer than the gondola, but narrower 
and lighter, carved, painted, and gilded, it is with- 
out seats or rudder; you sit in the bottom upon a 
cushion or bit of carpet, only your head and shoul- 
ders visible above the sides; both ends are shaped 
alike, so that it can be propelled in either direc- 
tion, and it is easily upset by any sudden move- 
ment. Shooting out from the shore like an arrow 
from the bow, it seems to fly like a swallow, 
barely touching the water; overtakes and passes 
all other craft, and disappears in the distance, its 
bright and varied colors reflected in the waves like 
a dolphin flying from its pursuer. Our oarsmen 
were a couple of good-looking young Turks dressed 
in white trousers, light blue shirts, and red fezzes, 
with bare arms and legs—a pair of lusty athletes of 


twenty or so, bronzed, clean, cheerful, and frank. At 


ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN. 119 


each stroke the boat bounds forward its whole 
length. Other kiiks fly by, hardly seen before they 
are lost sight of; we pass flocks of ducks; large 
covered barges filled with veiled women; clouds of 
birds circle over our heads; from time to time the 
tall sea-grass shuts out everything from view. 

Seen thus from the other end of the Golden Horn 
and at that hour, the city presents an entirely new 
aspect. The Asiatic coast, owing to the bend of the 
shore, is entirely hidden, Seraglio Point shutting in 
the Golden Horn as though it were a great lake. 
The hills on either bank seem to have grown larger, 
and Stambul, far, far away, is a blending of delicate 
blues and grays, huge and indistinct. Like an en- 
chanted city, it seems to float upon the water and 
lose itself among the clouds. The kaik flies on; 
the two banks recede, inlet after inlet, grove after 
grove, suburb after suburb; our surroundings widen 
out. The colors of the city grow dim, the horizon 
seems to be on fire, the water is full of purple and 
gold reflections; on and on, until at last a profound 
lethargy steals over us, a sense of boundless content, 
in which we remain silent and happy, until finally 
the boatman is obliged to call in our ears, ‘‘ Monsu ! 
arrivar !” before we can arouse ourselves suf- 
ficiently to know where we are. 





THE GREAT BAZAR. 





THE GREAT BAZAR. 


AFTER giving a superficial glance over all of Con- 
stantinople, including both banks of the Golden 
Horn, it seemed now time to penetrate into the heart 
of Stambul, to explore that world-embracing, perpet- 
ual fair, that hidden city, dim, mysterious, crammed 
with associations, wonders, and treasures, which, ex- 
tending from the Nari Osmaniyeh to the Serasker 
hill, is called The Great Bazar. 

We will start from the square in front of the Val- 
ideh Sultan mosque. Here the epicurean reader 
may like possibly to pause long enough to inspect 
the Baluk Bazar, that fish-market famous ever 
since the days of thrifty old Andronicus Palzologus, 
who, we are told, met the entire culinary expenses 
of his court with the profits made from fish caught 
only along the walls of the city, where, indeed, they 
are still most plentiful, and, seen on one of its prin- 
cipal days, the Baluk Bazar would afford as succu- 
lent and tempting a subject for the author of the 
Ventre de Paris as one of those well-covered tables 
one sees in old Dutch pictures. The venders, almost 
without exception Turks, are drawn up all around 

123 


124 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


the square behind their fish, which are spread out on 
mats stretched upon the ground or else on long 
tables, around which a crowd of customers and an 
army of dogs fight for precedence. Here may be 
found the delicious mullet of the Bosphorus, four 
times the size it attains to in our waters; oysters 
from the island of Marmora, which the Greeks and 
Armenians alone understand how to cook properly, 
broiling them on the live coals; sprats and tunnies, 
the salting of which is an industry confined almost 
entirely to the Jews; anchovies, which the Turks 
have learned how to put up in the Marseillaise fash- 
ion; sardines, with which Constantinople provides 
the entire Archipelago; the lowfer, that most deli- 
cious of all the Bosphorus fish, which is caught by 
moonlight; mackerel from the Black Sea, which 
make seven invasions successively into the waters 
of the city, accompanied by a noise so loud that it 
can be heard in the towns on both shores; the 
colossal isdaurid ; enormous sword-fish ; turbots, or, 
as they are called by the Turks, kalkau-baluk ;  shell- 
fish, and a thousand and one other varieties of the 
smaller kinds of fish which dart and frisk about 
from one to the other of the two seas, chased by 
dolphins and falianos, and preyed upon by innu- 
merable kingfishers, from whose very mouths the 
booty is often snatched by the piombini. 

Cooks from great houses, old Mussulman_ bons: 


vivants, slaves, and young employés from the various 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 125 


restaurants surround the tables, examine the fish 
with a meditative air, bargain in monosyllables, and 
walk off, each carrying his purchase suspended by a 
bit of twine, grave, taciturn, self-contained as though 
it were the head of an enemy. By mid-day the 
square is deserted and the venders have repaired to 
the various cafés in the neighborhood, where they 
will sit with their backs against the wall and the 
mouthpiece of a narghileh between their lips, in a 
sort of waking sleep, until sunset. 

To reach the Great Bazar we take a street open- 
ing out of the fish-market, so narrow that the pro- 
jecting parts of the opposite houses almost touch one 
another; on either side are rows of low, ill-lighted 
tobacconist shops, that ‘‘fourth support of the tent 
of voluptuousness,” coming after coffee, opium, and 
wine, or “the fourth of pleasure’s couches,” as it 
is sometimes called. Like coffee, tobacco has been 
blasted by imperial edicts and denounced by the 
mufti, with the usual result of adding fresh zest to 
its use and making it a fruitful source of tumult and 
punishment; and now this entire street is devoted 
to traffic in it alone. The tobacco is displayed upon 
long shelves in pyramids and round piles, each one sur- 
mounted by alemon. All kinds are to be found here : 
latakia from Antioch; Seraglio tobacco as fine and 
smooth as spun silk; tobacco for pipe and cigarette 
of every grade of strength and flavor, from that 
smoked by the gigantic porter of Galata to that used 


126 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


by the indolent odalisques of the Seraglio to put them 
to sleep. There is the tombeki, so powerful that it 
would set the head of even a veteran smoker spin- 
ning did its fumes not reach his mouth first purified 
by the water of the narghileh, and which is kept in 
glass jars like a drug. The tobacconists are all 
Greeks or Armenians, with ceremonious manners, 
somewhat inclined to give themselves airs. The 
customers assemble before the shops in groups. 
Many of them are employés of the various foreign 
ambassadors or of the Seraskerat, and occasionally 
one sees some personage of importance. It is a 
great place for gossip of all kinds; polities are dis- 
cussed; the doings of the great world talked over; 
and merely to walk through this little, retired, aris- 
tocratic bazar leaves a strong impression upon one’s 
mind of the joys to be obtained from conversation 
and tobacco. 

We now pass beneath an old arched doorway 
festooned with vines, and come out opposite a large 
stone edifice, from which opens a long, straight, 
covered street lined with dimly-lighted shops and 
filled with people, packing-boxes, and heaps of mer- 
chandise. Entering this, we are immediately as- 
sailed by an odor so powerful as to fairly knock one 
down: this is the Egyptian Bazir, where are de- 
posited all the wares of India, Syria, Egypt, and 
Arabia, which later on, converted into essences, 


pastilles, powders, and ointments, serve to color little 


THE GREAT BAZAR. a LAF, 


hands and faces, perfume apartments and baths and 
breaths and beards, reinvigorate worn-out pashas, 
dull the senses of unhappy married people, stupefy 
smokers, and spread dreams, oblivion, and insensi- 
bility throughout the whole of the vast city. After 
going but a short distance in this bazar your head 
begins to feel dull and heavy, and you get out of it 
as fast as you can; but the effect of that hot, close 
atmosphere and those penetrating odors clings long 
to your clothing, and remains for all time im your 
memory as one of the most vivid and characteristic 
impressions of the Kast. 

After escaping from the Egyptian Bazar you pass 
among a crowd of noisy coppersmiths’ shops, Turk- 
ish restaurants, from which issue endless nauseous 
smells, and all manner of wretched booths, shops, 
and stands, dark little dens containing trash of all 
sorts, and finally come to the Great Bazar itself, not, 
however, before you have been obliged to defend 
yourself from a vigorous attack. 

About a hundred feet from the main entrance 
there lie in ambush like so many cutthroats the 
agents or middlemen of the merchants and the 
agents of the agents. These fellows are so well up 
in their business that at a single glance they learn 
not only that this is your first visit to the bazar, but 
usually make so clever a guess as to your nationality 
that they rarely make a mistake in the language 


which they first address you in. 


128 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


Approaching, fez in hand, they proceed, with an 
engaging smile, to offer their services. 

There usually then follows a conversation some- 
thing like this: the traveller, declining the proffered 
service, remarks, 

‘“‘T do not propose to make any purchases.” 

‘Oh, sir, what difference does that make? I only 
want to show you the bazar.” 

‘““T don’t care to see the bazar.” 

‘But I will escort you gratis.” 

‘“‘T don’t wish to be escorted gratis.” 

“‘Very well; then I will just go to the end of the 
street with you, merely to give you certain points, 
which you will find very useful some other day when 
you come to buy.” 

‘“‘ But suppose I don’t want to even hear you talk 
about buying ?” 

“‘ Very well, then, let us talk about something else. 
How long have you been in Constantinople? Is your 
hotel comfortable? Have you gotten permits to visit 
the mosques ?” 

“But when I tell you that I don’t want to talk 
about anything—that I wish, in short, to be alone—” 

“ All right; then I will leave you alone, and fol- 
low a dozen steps behind you.” 

“ But why should you follow me at all?” 

“Merely to prevent you from being cheated in the 
shops.” 


“But I tell you I am not going into the shops.” 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 129 


‘Well, then, to save you from annoyance on the 
street.” 

And so you must finally either pause to take 
breath and collect your ideas, or else yield and allow 
him to accompany you. 

There is nothing about the exterior of the Great 
Bazar to either attract the eye or give the faintest 
idea of what it is within. It is an immense stone 
edifice in the Byzantine style, irregular in form and 
surrounded by high gray walls, lighted by means of 
hundreds of small lead-covered domes in the roof. 
The principal entrance is through a high, vaulted 
doorway of no architectural pretensions. Outside, 
in the neighboring streets, no sounds can be heard 
of what is going on within, and half a dozen steps 
away from the entrance one might easily believe 
that only silence and solitude reigned within those 
prison-like walls ; once inside, however, this delusion 
is quickly dispelled. You find yourself not in a 
building at all, but in a labyrinth of streets with 
vaulted roofs, lined with columns and carved pilas- 


ters—a veritable city, with mosques and fountains, 





thoroughfares and open squares, pervaded with the 
dim, subdued light of the forest, where no ray or 
gleam of sunshine ever penetrates, and thronged 
with immense crowds of people. Every street is 
a bazar, generally leading out of the principal 
thoroughfare—a street covered by a roof composed 


of white and black stone arches and decorated with 
Vou. I.—9 


130 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


arabesques like the nave of a mosque. Processions of 
horses, camels, and carriages pass up and down the 
dimly-lighted streets, in the midst of the throng of 
foot-passengers, with a deafening, reverberating noise. 
On all sides attempts are being made by word and 
gesture to attract your attention. The Greek mer- 
chant hails you with loud, imperious voice, while his 
Armenian rival, by far the greater knave of the two, 
assumes a modest, retiring manner, addressing you 
in soft, obsequious tones; the Jew murmurs gently 
in your ear; while the Turk, silent and reserved as 
ever, squats on a cushion in his doorway and con- 
tents himself with addressing you solely with his 
eye, leaving the results to Fate. Ten voices appeal 
to you at once: ‘Monsieur! captain! caballero! 
signore! eccelenza! kyrie! milor!” Down every 
cross-street you catch glimpses of new vistas, long 
lines of columns and pilasters, corridors, other streets 
opening out of these again, arcades and galleries, 
confused far-off views of new bazirs, shops, mer- 
chandise suspended on the walls and from the roofs, 
bustling merchants, heavily-laden porters, figures of 
veiled women, noisy groups, which constantly form, 
dissolve, and form again—a mingling of sights, 
sounds, colors, and movement to set one’s head in a 
whirl. The confusion, however, is only apparent: 
in reality, this enormous mart is arranged with as 
much system and order as a barracks, and it takes 


but a few hours for one to become sufficiently at 













ahr a mip Shido wlio ae 

ty nf ‘Every separqn 

ate “roti hab se sp! 

Tis stvoct, ‘oorridoy, ‘und square; -there ane. 
small baaire openingiene into another > fhe 

eecccs 
“at | 


~ ited fabtics of Cad. 3 Peet eestlonss 
Mikoe veilk ethiped i =. ed hut and Ped 
gaze BOA TA Se the ‘Date-seller)> 0: » & look [ke 
Sean guts a o ‘eee af ager aad design, 


talloa-s7e2C 





THE GREAT BAZAR. 131 


home in it to find his way to any object without dif- 
culty or the help of a dragoman. Every separate 
kind of merchandise has its own especial quarter, 
its little street, corridor, and square; there are a 
hundred small bazérs opening one into another like 
the rooms in some vast suite of apartments, and each 
bazar is at the same time a museum, a promenade, a 
market, and a theatre, in which you can look at all 
without buying anything, can drink your cup of 
coffee, enjoy the open air, chat in a dozen different 
languages, and make eyes at the prettiest girls to be 
found in the Kast. 

Dropping at random into any one of these bazars, 
half a day goes by without your so much as knowing 
it: take, for instance, the bazar of stuffs and cos- 
tumes. Here are displayed such a dazzling array 
of beautiful and rare objects that you at once lose 
your head, to say nothing of your purse, and the 
chances are that, should you in any unguarded mo- 
ment be tempted to satisfy some small caprice, you 
will end by having to telegraph home for assistance. 
You pass between pyramids and heaps of Bagdad 
brocades; rugs from Caramania; Brusa_ silks; 
India linens; muslins from Bengal; shawls from 
Madras; Indian and Persian cashmeres: the varie- 
gated fabrics of Cairo; gold-embroidered cushions ; 
silken veils striped with silver ; striped blue and red 
gauze scarfs, so light and transparent as to look like 


clouds ; stuffs of every variety of color and design, 


132 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


in which blue and green, crimson and yellow, all the 
colors which disagree most violently, are combined 
and blended together in a harmony so perfect and 
exquisite that you can only gaze in open-mouthed 
admiration; table-covers of all sizes upon whose 
background of red or white cloth are outlined intri- 
cate silken designs of flowers, verses from the 
Koran, and imperial monograms, which it would 
take a day to examine, like a wall in the Alhambra. 
Here one has as good an opportunity to see and ad- 
mire, one by one, each of the various articles which 
go to make up the costume of a Turkish lady as 
though it were the aleove of a harem, from the 
green or orange or purple mantles which are thrown 
over everything in public down to the silken 
chemise, gold-embroidered kerchief, and even the 
satin girdle upon which no eye of man other than 
that of the husband or eunuch is ever allowed to fall. 
Here may be seen red-velvet caftans edged with er- 
mine and covered with stars; yellow satin bodices ; 
trousers of rose-colored silk; white damask under- 
vests thickly covered with gold flowers; wedding 
veils sparkling with silver spangles; little green- 
cloth jackets edged with swan’s down; Greek, Ar- 
menian, Circassian costumes of a thousand fantastic 
shapes, so thickly covered with ornamentation as to 
be as hard and glittering as breastplates ; and mixed 
in with all this magnificence the sombre, commonplace, 


serviceable stuffs of England and France, producing 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 133 


much the same effect upon the mind as would the 
sight of a tailor’s bill introduced into the pages of a 
volume of poems. If there is a woman anywhere 
in the world whom you care for, you cannot walk 
through this bazar without longing to be a million- 
aire or else feeling the passion for plunder blaze up 
within you, if only for a moment. 

To free yourself from these unhallowed desires 
you have but turn a little to one side and you find 
yourself in the pipe-bazar, where the soul is gently 
conducted back to more tranquil pastures. Here 
you come upon collections of cherry, maple, rose- 
wood, and jessamine pipes, and of yellow amber 
mouth-pieces from the Baltic Sea, polished until they 
shine like erystal, and of every grade of color and 
transparency, some of them set with diamonds or 
rubies; pipes from Cesarea, their stems wrapped 
with silk and gold thread; tobacco-pouches from 
Lybia decorated- with many-colored lozenges and 
gorgeous embroidery; silver, steel, and Bohemian 
glass narghilehs of exquisite antique shapes, en- 
graved and chased and studded with precious stones, 
their morocco tubes glittering with rings and gilding, 
all wrapped in raw cotton and under the constant 
surveillance of two glittering eyes whose gaze never 
wavers; but let any one short of a vizier or a pasha 
who has spent years in bleeding some province of 
Asia Minor approach, and the pupils dilate in such a 
manner as to cause the modest inquiry as to the 


134 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


price to die away upon one’s lips. Here the purchaser 
must be some envoy of the sultana anxious to present 
a slight token of her appreciation to the pliable 
grand vizier; or a high court dignitary, who on 
assuming the cares of his new office is obliged, in 
order to maintain his dignity, to expend the sum of 
fifty thousand francs upon a rack of pipes; or a 
newly-appointed foreign ambassador who on depart- 
ing for some European court wishes to take to its 
royal master a magnificent memento of Stambul. 
The Turk of modest means gazes mournfully upon 
these treasures and passes by on the other side, 
paraphrasing for his consolation that saying of the 
Prophet, ‘‘The flames of the infernal regions shall 
rage like the bellowing of the camel in the stomach 
of him who shall smoke a pipe of gold or silver.” 
Passing from here into the perfumery bazar, we once 
more find ourselves beset with temptations. It is one 
of the most distinctively Oriental in character of all the 
bazdrs, and its wares were very dear to the heart of the 
Prophet, who classes together women, children, and 
perfumes as the three things which gave him the 
greatest pleasure. Here are to be had those famous 
Seraglio pastilles designed to perfume kisses; pack- 
ages of the scented gum prepared by the hardy 
daughters of Chio to be used in strengthening the 
gums of delicate Mussulman women; exquisite es- 
sence of jessamine and of bergamont and powerful 


attar of roses, enclosed in red-velvet, gold-embroid- 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 135 


ered cases, and sold at prices that make one’s hair 
stand on end; here can be bought ointment for the 
eyebrows, antimony for the eyes, henne for the 
nails, soap to soften the Syrian beauty’s skin, and 
pills to prevent hair from growing on the face of the 
too masculine Circassian; cedar and orange-water, 
scent-bags of musk, sandal oil, ambergris, aloes to 
perfume cups and pipes—a myriad of different 
powders, pomatums, and waters with fanciful names 
and destined to uses undreamed of in the prosaic 
West, each one representing in itself some amorous 
fancy or seductive caprice, the very refinement of 
voluptuousness, and exhaling, all together, an odor 
at once penetrating and sensual, and dreamily sug- 
gestive of great languid eyes, soft caressing hands, 
and the subdued murmur of sighs and embraces. 
These fancies are quickly dispelled on turning into 
the jewelry bazar, a narrow, dark, deserted street, 
flanked by wretched-looking little shops, the last 
places on earth where one would expect to find the 
fabulous treasures which, as a matter of fact, they 
do contain. The jewels are kept in oaken coffers, 
hooped and bound with iron, which stand in the 
front of the shops under the ever-watchful gaze of 
the merchant, some old Turk or Hebrew with long 
beard, and piercing eyes which seem to penetrate 
into the very recesses of your pocket and examine 
the contents of your purse; occasionally one or an- 


other of them, standing erect before his door, as 


136 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


you pass close by first regards you fixedly in the 
eye, and then with a rapid movement flashes before 
your face a diamond of Golconda, a sapphire from 
Ormus, or a ruby of Gramschid, which at the 
slightest negative movement on your part is as 
quickly withdrawn from sight. Others, circulating 
slowly about, stop you in the middle of the street, 
and, after casting a suspicious glance all around, 
draw forth from their bosoms a dirty bit of rag in 
whose folds is hidden a fine Brazilian topaz or 
Macedonian turquoise, watching like some tempting 
demon to see its effect upon you. Others, again, 
after scrutinizing you closely, come to the conclusion 
that you have not the precious-stones look, as it 
were, and do not trouble themselves to offer you any- 
thing, and you may wear the face of a saint or the 
airs of a Croesus, and it will not avail to open those 
oaken boxes. The opal necklaces, emerald stars 
and pendants, the coronets and crescents of pearls 
of Ophir, the dazzling heaps of beryls, agates, gar- 
nets, of crystals, aventurine, and lapis lazuli re- 
main inexorably hidden from the eyes of the curious, 
provided he has no money, or, at all events, from 
those of a poor devil of an Italian writer. The ut- 
most such an one can aceomplish is to ask the price 
of a coral or sandal-wood or amber tesp? which he 
runs through his fingers, as the Turk does, to pass 
away the time in the intervals of his forced labors. 


If you want to be really amused, though, just go 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 1ST 


into the Frankish shops, those which deal in every- 
thing, and where there are goods to suit all pockets. 
Hardly has your foot crossed the threshold before a 
crowd of people spring up from you don’t know 
where, and in an instant you are surrounded. It is 
out of the question to transact your business with 
one single person. What between the merchant 
himself, his partners, his agents, and the various 
hangers-on of the establishment, you never have to 
do with less than a half dozen at least. If you 
escape being floored by one, you are, so to speak, 
strung up by another. There is no way by which 
final defeat can be warded off. Words fail to de- 
scribe their patience, art, and persistency, the dia- 
bolical subterfuges to which they resort in order to 
force you to buy what they choose. Finding every- 
thing put at an exorbitant price, you offer a third, 
upon which they drop their arms in sign of profound 
discouragement or beat their foreheads in dumb 
despair, or else they burst into an impassioned tor- 
rent of appeal and expostulation calculated to touch 
your feelings as a man and a brother. You are hard 
and cruel; you are evidently determined to force 
them to close their shops; your object is to reduce 
them to misery and want; you have no compassion 
for their innocent children; they wonder plaintively 
what injury they could ever have done you that you 
should be so bent upon their ruin. While you are 


being told the price of an article an agent from a 


13 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


neighboring shop hisses in your ear, ‘ Don’t buy it; 
you are being cheated.” Taking this for a piece of 
honest advice, you soon discover that there is an 
understanding between him and the shopkeeper ; 
the information that you are being imposed upon in 
the matter of a shawl is only given in order to fleece 
you far worse in the purchase of a hanging. While 
you are examining the various articles they talk in 
broken sentences among themselves, gesticulating, 
striking their breasts, casting looks full of dark 
meaning. If you understand Greek, the conversa- 
tion is in Turkish; if you‘are familiar with that, it 
is in Armenian; if you show any knowledge of Ar- 
menian, they employ Spanish; but whatever lan- 
guage is adopted, they know enough of it to cheat 
you. If after some time you still preserve an un- 
broken front, they begin stroking you down—tell 
you how beautifully you talk their tongue; that you 
have all the air and manner of a real gentleman ; 
that they will never be able to forget your attractive 
face. They talk of the land of your birth, where 
they have passed so many happy years. They 
have, in fact, been everywhere. Then they make 
you a cup of fresh coffee and offer to accompany you 
to the custom-house when you leave in order to in- 
terpose between you and the overbearing authorities ; 
which means, being interpreted, in order to secure a 
final opportunity for cheating you and your fellow- 


travellers, in case you may have any. ‘They turn 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 139 


their whole shop upside down for you, and should 
you finally leave without having bought anything, 
you get no black looks, as they have a sustaining 
conviction that the harvest is only deferred; if not 
to-day, then some other day: you are certain to re- 
turn to the bazar, when their bloodhounds will scent 
you out, and should you escape falling into their 
clutches, you will undoubtedly be caught in the toils 
of one of their associates; if they do not fleece you 
as shopkeepers, they will flay you as agents; if 
they fail to overreach you in the bazar, they will 
get the better of you at the custom-house. Of what 
nationality are these men? No one knows: by dint 
of having a smattering of so many different lan- 
guages they have lost their original accent, and the 
constant habit of acting a part has ended by altering 
the natural lines of their faces to such a degree as 
to efface their national traits. They belong to any 
race you choose, and their profession is whatever 
you may have need of at the moment—shopkeeper, 
guide, interpreter, money-lender, and, above all, 
past master in the art of gulling the universe. 
The Mussulman shopkeepers present an altogether 
different field of observation. Among them may still 
be found examples of those venerable Turks, rarely 
enough to be seen now-a-days in the streets of Con- 
stantinople, who look like living representatives of the 
days of the Muhammads and Bayezids, remnants left 


intact of that mighty Ottoman edifice whose walls 


140 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


received their fitst rude shock in the reforms of Mah- 
mud, and which since then, year by year, stone 
by stone, have been crumbling into ruins. One 
must now go to the Great Bazar and search in the 
dimmest shops of the most obscure streets to behold 
those enormous turbans of the time of Suleiman, 
shaped like the dome of a mosque, and beneath them 
the impressive face, the expressionless eye, hooked 
nose, long white beard, antique purple or orange 
eaftan, full, plaited trousers confined about the waist 
by a huge sash, and the haughty and melancholy 
bearing of a once all-powerful people. With expres- 
sions dulled by opium or lighted up with the fire of 
fanaticism, they sit all day in the backs of their dens 
with crossed legs and folded arms, calm and unmoved 
like idols, awaiting with closed lips the predestined 
purchaser. If business is brisk, they murmur, 
“ Mach Allah!” (God be praised!); if dull, ‘ Ol- 
sun!” (So be it!), and bow their heads resignedly. 
Some employ their time in reading the Koran; others 
run the beads of the tesp? through their fingers, mur- 
muring under their breath the hundred epithets of 
Allah; others, whose affairs have prospered, drink 
their narghilehs, as the Turks express it, slowly re- 
volving around them their sleepy, voluptuous-looking 
eyes; others sit with drooping lids and bent brow in 
an attitude of profound meditation. Of what are 
they thinking? Possibly of their sons killed be- 


neath the walls of Sebastopol, of their far-off cara- 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 141 


vans, of the lost pleasures of youth, or possibly of 
the eternal gardens promised by the Prophet, where, 
in the shade of the palm and the pomegranate, they 
will espouse those dark-eyed brides never yet pro- 
faned by mortal or geni. There is about each indi- 
vidual one of them something striking and original, 
and all are picturesque. The shop forms a frame- 
work for a picture full of color and suggestion ; 
one’s mind is instantly filled with images taken from 
history or what is known of the domestic life of this 
strange people. This spare, bronzed man with a 
bold, alert expression is an Arab; he has led his 
train of camels laden with gems and alabaster from 
the interior of his far-off country, and more than 
once has felt the balls of the robbers of the desert 
whiz past him. This one in the yellow turban, bear- 
ing himself with an air of command, has crossed the 
solitudes of Syria on horseback, carrying with him 
treasures of silk from Tyre and Sidon. Yonder 
negro, with his head enveloped in an old Persian 
shawl, is from Nubia; his forehead is covered with 
scars made by magicians to preserve him from death, 
and he holds his head aloft as though still behold- 
ing before him the Colossus of Thebes or summits of 
the Pyramids. This good-looking Moor, with his 
black eyes and pallid skin, wrapped in a long snow- 
white cloak, has carried his cave and his carpets from 
the uttermost western limits of the Atlas chain. 


That green-turbaned Turk, with the emaciated face, 


142 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


has this very year returned from the great pilgrim- 
age. After seeing relatives and companions die of 
thirst amid the interminable plains of Asia Minor, 
he finally reached Mecca in the last stages of ex- 
haustion, and, after dragging himself seven times 
around the Kaaba, finally fell half swooning upon 
the Black Stone, covering it with impassioned 
kisses. This giant with a pale face, arched brows, 
and piercing eyes, who has far more the air of a 
warrior than of a merchant, his entire bearing breath- 
ing nothing but pride and arrogance, has brought his 
furs hither from the northern regions of the Cau- 
casus, and in his day struck at a blow the head from 
off the shoulders of more than one Cossack. And 
this poor wool-merchant, with his flat face and small 
oblique eyes, active and sinewy as an athlete, it is 
not so long since he was saying his prayers in the 
shadow of that immense dome which rises above the 
sepulchre of Tamerlane. Starting from Samarcand, 
he crossed the desert of Great Bukharia, and, pass- 
ing safely through the midst of the Turkoman hordes, 
crossed the Dead Sea, escaped the balls of the Cir- 
cassians, and, after returning thanks to Allah in 
the mosques of Trebizond, has at last come to seek 
his fortune in Stambul, from whence, as he grows 
old, he will surely return once more to his beloved 
Tartary, which always claims the first place in his 
heart. 


The shoe bazar is one of the most resplendent of 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 113 


all, and possibly fills the brain more than any other 
with wild longings and riotous desires. It consists 
of two glittering rows of shops, which make the 
street in which it is situated look like a suite of 
royal apartments or like one of those gardens in the 
Arabian fairy-stories where the fruit trees are laden 
with pearls and have golden leaves. There are 
shoes enough there to supply the feet of every court 
in Europe and Asia. The walls are completely cov- 
ered with slippers of the sauciest shapes and most 
striking and fanciful colors, made out of skins, vel- 
vet, brocade, and satin, ornamented with filigree- 
work, gold, tinsel, pearls, silken tassels, swan’s down ; 
flowered and starred in gold and silver; so thickly 
covered with intricate embroidery as to completely 
hide the original texture; and glittering with emer- 
alds and sapphires. You can buy shoes there for 
the boatman’s bride or for the Seraglio belle; you 
may pay five frances a pair or a thousand. ‘There 
are morocco shoes destined to walk the paved streets 
of Pera, and beside them Turkish slippers which 
will one day glide over the thick carpets of some 
pasha’s harem; light wooden shoes which will re- 
sound on the marbles of the imperial baths; tiny 
slippers of white satin on which ardent lovers’ kisses 
will be showered; and it may well be that yonder 
pair encrusted with pearls will some day stand beside 
the couch of the Padishih himself, awaiting the 


pretty feet of some beautiful Georgian. But how, 


144 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


you ask yourself, is it possible for any feet to get 
into such tiny little receptacles? Some of them 
seem intended to fit the houris and fairies—long 
as the leaf of a lily. wide as the leaf of a rose, 
of such dimensions as to throw all Andalusia into 
despair; graceful as a dream—not slippers at all, 
but jewels, toys, objects to stand on one’s table full 
of bonbons or to keep billetsdoux in. Once allow 
your imagination to dwell upon the foot which could 
wear them, and you are seized with an insane desire 
to behold it yourself, to stroke and caress it like some 
pretty plaything. This bazar is one of those most 
frequented by strangers: it is not unusual to encoun- 
ter young Europeans wandering about with slips of 
paper in their hands upon which are inscribed the 
measurements of some small French or Italian foot, 
of which they are possibly quite proud, and it is 
amusing to see their faces fall and the look of incred- 
ulous astonishment which follows the discovery that 
some slipper which has attracted their fancy is far 
too small; while others, having asked the price of a 
pair they had thought of buying, receive so over- 
whelming a reply that they make off without a word. 
Here, too, may sometimes be seen Mussulman ladies 
(hanum) with long white veils, and one can often 
catch, in passing, fragments of their lengthy dia- 
logues with the shopkeepers, brief sentences of that 
beautiful language, uttered in sweet, clear tones, 


which fall upon the ear like the notes of a mandolin : 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 145 


“ Buni catscia verersin!” (How much is this ?) 
“ Pahalli dir” (It is too high). “ Ziade veremem” 
(I won’t pay any more). And then a childish, ring- 
ing laugh, which makes you feel like patting them 
on the head or pinching their cheeks. 

But the richest and most picturesque of all is the 
armory bazar. It is more like a museum, really, 
than a bazar, overflowing with treasures and filled 
with objects which at once transport the imagination 
into the realms of history and legend. Every sort 
and shape of weapon is there, fantastic, horrible, 
cruel-looking, which has ever been brandished in 
defence of Islamism from Mecca to the Danube, 
polished and set out in warlike array, as though but 
now laid down by the fanatical soldiery of Muham- 
mad and Selim. You seem to see the glittering eyes 
of those formidable sultans, those savage Janissaries, 
those spahis and azabs, drunk with blood, amid the 
gleaming blades—those silidars, to whom pity and 
fear were alike unknown, and who strewed Europe 
and Asia Minor with severed heads and stiffened 
corpses. Here are displayed those renowned cime- 
ters capable of cutting through a floating feather 
or striking off the ears of audacious ambassadors ; 
those heavy Turkish daggers which cleaved down- 
ward at a blow from the skull to the very heart; 
mighty clubs which crashed through Servian and 
Hungarian helmets; yataghans, their handles inlaid 
with ivory and encrusted with amethysts and rubies, 

Vou. I.—10 


146 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


and on their blades the engraved record of the num- 
ber of heads they have cut off; poniards with silver, 
velvet, or satin sheaths and agate or ivory handles 
set with coral, turquoise, and garnets, inscribed in 
golden lettermg with verses from the Koran, their 
blades curved backward as though feeling for a 
heart. Who can tell whether amid all this strange 
and terrible array there may not be the cimeter of 
Orcano or the sabre with which the powerful arm 
of the warrior-dervish Abd-cl-Murad struck off the 
heads of his enemies at a single blow; or that fa- 
mous yataghan with which Sultan Moussa clove asun- 
der the bedy of Hassan from shoulder to heart ; or 
the huge cimeter of the Bulgarian giant who set the 
first ladder in place against the walls of Constanti- 
nople; or the club with which Muhammad II. felled 
his rapacious soldiers beneath the roof of St. So- 
phia; or the mighty Damascus sabre with which 
Scanderbeg eut down Firuzi Pasha beneath the walls 
of Stetigrad? All the most horrible massacres and 
blood-curdling murders of Otteman history, revolts 
of the Janissaries, and black deeds of treachery 
come crowding into one’s mind at the mere sight of 
these terrific weapons, and one fancies that blood- 
stains ean be detected upon the gleaming blades, 
and that those old Turks lurking in the dim re- 
cesses of their shops have gathered them from the 
ficld of battle—yes, and the bodies of their owners 


as well—and that even now their shattered skeletons 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 147 


are occupying some obscure corner close at hand. 
In among the arms are great blue and scarlet vel- 
vet saddles, worked with gold stars and crescents 
and embroidered in pearls, with plumed frontals and 
chased silver bits; saddle-cloths magnificent as royal 
mantles; trappings which remind one of the Thou- 
sand and One Nights, seemingly intended for the use 
of a king of the genii making his triumphal entry 
into a golden city in the land of dreams. Suspended 
on the walls above all these treasures are antique 
firelock muskets, clumsy Albanian pistols, long Ara- 
bian guns worked and chased like pieces of jewel- 
ry; ancient shields made out of bark, tortoise-shell, 
or hippopotamus skin; Circassian armor, Cossack 
shields, Mongolian head-pieces, Turkish bows, execu- 
tioners’ axes, great blades of uncouth shape and full 
of horrible suggestions, each one of which seems to 
bear witness to a crime committed, and brings before 
one frightful visions of death-agonies. 

Seated cross-legged in the midst of all these ob- 
jects of magnificence and horror are the merchants 
who, of all those to be found in the Great Bazar, 
present the most striking and distinctive examples 
of the true Mussulman. They are, for the most 
part, old, of forbidding aspect, lean as anchorites, 
haughty as sultans, belonging apparently to another 
age and wearing the dress of a bygone era: it 
would seem as though they had arisen from the dead 


for the purpose of recalling their degenerate de- 


148 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


scendants to the forgotten austerities of their ancient 
race. 

Another spot well worth seeing is the old-clothes 
bazir. Rembrandt would simply have taken up 
his abode here, and Goya have expended his last 
peseta. Any one who has never been in an Oriental 
second-hand shop can form no idea of the variety 
and richness of the rags, pomp of color, and irony 
of contrast to be found in them—a sight at once 
fantastic, melancholy, and repellent. They are a 
sort of rag-sewer, in which the refuse of harem, 
barrack, court, and theatre await together the mo- 
ment when some artist’s caprice or beggar’s neces- 
sity shall once more call them forth into the light of 
day. From long poles fastened to the walls depend 
antique Turkish uniforms, swallow-tailed coats, fine 
gentlemen’s cloaks, dervishes’ tunics, Bedouins’ 
mantles, all greasy, torn, and faded, looking as 
though they had been taken by force from their 
former owners, and strongly resembling the booty 
found on footpads and assassins which may be seen 
on exhibition in the Court of Assizes. In among 
all these rags and tatters one catches the glitter of 
an occasional bit of gold embroidery ; old silk scarfs 
and turbans, all unwrapped, dangle to and fro; a 
rich shawl with ragged edges; a velvet corsage look- 
ing as though some rude hand had torn off its trim- 
ming of pearls and fir; slippers and veils which may 


once have belonged to some beautiful sinner, whose 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 149 


body, sewn up in a bag, now sleeps quietly enough 
beneath the rippling waters of the Bosphorus ;— 
these and countless other feminine garments and 
adornments, of all manner of charming shapes and 
colors, hang imprisoned between rough Circassian 
caftans, long black Jewish capes, rusty cartridge- 
boxes, heavy cloaks and coarse tunics beneath 
whose folds who knows how often the bandit’s mus- 
ket or dagger of the assassin may have been hidden ? 
On toward evening, when the subdued light from the 
roof above becomes still more uncertain, all these 
garments, as they sway back and forth in the wind, 
assume the look and air of human bodies strung up 
there by some murderer’s hand, and just then, as your 
eye catches the sinister glance of one of those old 
Jews seated watchfully in the rear of his gloomy 
den of a shop, you cannot avoid fancying that the 
skinny claw with which he scratches his forehead 
can be no other than the one which tightened the 
rope—a soothing idea which causes you to glance 
involuntarily over your shoulder to see if the en- 
trance to the bazar is still open. 

One day of wandering here and there will not 
suffice if you really wish to see every part of this 
strange city. There is the fez bazar, in which are 
to be found fezzes of every country in the world, 
from that of Morocco to the Vienna fez, ornamented 
with inscriptions from the Koran, which serve to 
ward off evil spirits; the fez which is worn perched 


150 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


on the tops of their heads by the pretty Greek girls 
of Smyrna, surmounting their coils of black hair 
intertwined with coins; the little red fez of the 
Turkish women ; soldiers’, generals’, sultans’, dan- 
dies’ fezzes, of all shades of red and every style, from 
the primitive ones worn in the days of Orcano to the 
large and elegant fez of Mahmid, emblem of reform 
and an abomination in the eyes of Mussulmans of the 
old school. 

Then there is the fur bazir, where may be seen 
the sacred fur of the black wolf, which at one time 
none but the Sultan himself and his grand vizier 
were allowed to wear; the marten, used to trim state 
caftans; skins of white and black bears; astrakhan, 
ermine, blue wolf, and rich sable skins, upon which 
in old times the sultans would expend fabulous sums 
of money. 

Then the cutlery bazar is worth a visit, if only to 
examine those huge Turkish shears whose bronzed 
and gilded blades, adorned with fantastic designs of 
birds and flowers, open with a murderous sweep 
wide enough to swallow up entirely the head of an 
unfavorable critic. 

There are the gold-thread embroidery, china, 
household utensils, and tailors’ bazars, all differing 
from one another in size, shape, and character, but 
all in one respect alike, that in none of them do you 
ever see a woman either attending to the customers 


or working apart. At the very most, it may occa- 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 15k 


sionally happen that a Greek woman, seated for a 
moment in front of some tailor’s shop, will timidly 
offer to sell you a handkerchief she has just finished 
embroidering. Oriental jealousy forbids shopkeep- 
ing to the fair sex, as offering too wide a field for 
coquetry and intrigue. 

In other parts of the Great Bazar it is as well for 
a stranger not to venture unless he is accompanied 
by a dragoman or one of the shopkeepers. Those 
are the interior parts of the various districts into 
which this strange city is divided—the islands, as it 
were, about which wind and twist the rapid currents 
of streets and byways. If it is a difficult matter to 
keep from losing your way among the main thor- 
oughfares, in here it is quite impossible. From 
passage-ways scarcely wider that a man’s shoul- 
ders, where it is necessary to stoop to avoid striking 
your head, you come out upon tiny courtyards en- 
cumbered with bales and boxes, where hardly so 
much as a single ray of light can penetrate. Feel- 
ing your way down flights of wooden steps, you 
come to other courts lighted only by lanterns, from 
which you descend below ground, or, climbing up 
again into what passes for the light of day, stumble 
with bent head through long, winding corridors, be- 
neath damp roofs and between black and moss- 
grown walls, to come at last upon some small hidden 
doorway, and suddenly find yourself exactly where 


you started. Everywhere shadowy forms are seen 


152 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


coming and going ; dusky shapes stand immovable in 
dark corners, outlines of persons handling merchan- 
dise or counting money; lights which flash ahead of 
you at one moment, and the next, disappear; a 
sound of hurrying footsteps, of low, eager voices, 
coming from you don’t know where; reflections 
thrown from unseen lights; suspicious encounters ; 
strange odors like those one might expect to escape 
from a witch’s cave; and apparently no possible 
means of escape from it all. The dragoman is very 
apt to conduct his victim through these quarters on 
his way to those shops, usually somewhat apart, 
which contain a little of everything, like Great Ba- 
zars in miniature or a superior sort of second- 
hand shop, extremely curious and interesting, but 
extremely perilous as well, since they contain such 
a variety of rare and attractive objects as to woo the 
money out of the pocket of the veriest miser. The 
shopkeepers here are great solemn knaves, thor- 
oughly well versed in every art appertaining to their 
business, and, polyglot like their brothers of the 
trade, have a certain dramatic power which they 
employ in the most entertaining manner to tempt 
people to buy, sometimes rising to the level of gen- 
uinely good acting. Their shops usually consist of 
dark little holes cluttered up with boxes and chests 
of drawers, where lights have to be lit in order to 
see anything, and there is barely enough space to 


turn around in. After displaying a few trifles inlaid 


THE GREAT BAZAR. 153 


with ivory and mother-of-pearl, some bits of Chinese 
porcelain, a Japanese vase or two, and some other 
things of the same sort, the shopkeeper informs you 
with an impressive air that he sees what sort of per- 
son you are, and will now bring out something es- 
pecially suited to you. He then proceeds to pull out 
a certain drawer, whose contents he empties upon 
the table. There are all manner of knick-knacks 
and gewgaws—a peacock-feather fan, a bracelet 
made of old Turkish coins, a little leather cushion 
with the Sultan’s monogram embroidered upon it in 
gold, a Persian hand-glass painted with a scene from 
the Book of Paradise, one of those tortoise-shell 
spoons with which Turks eat cherry compote, an 
ancient decoration of the Order of Osmanich. You 
don’t care for any of these, either? Very well. He 
turns out the contents of another, and this is a 
drawer which, as a matter of fact, was being re- 
served for your eye alone. There is a broken ele- 
phant’s tusk; a Trebizond bracelet, looking as 
though it had been made from a lock of silver hair ; 
a Japanese idol; a sandal-wood comb from Mecca; 
a large Turkish spoon, chased and filigreed; an an- 
tique silver narghileh, gilded and inscribed; bits of 
mosaic from St. Sophia; a heron’s feather, which 
once ornamented the turban of Selim III.: for the 
truth of this last statement the merchant, as a man 
of honor, is willing to vouch. And still there is 
nothing which suits your fancy? Here, then, is an- 


P54 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


other drawer, crammed full of treasures—an ostrich 
egg from Sahara; a Persian inkstand; a chased 
ring; a Mingrelian bow, with its quiver made out of 
an elk’s skin; a Circassian two-pointed head-piece ; 
a jasper rosary; a smelling-bottle of beaten gold; 
a Turkish talisman; a camel-driver’s knife; a box 
of attar-gul. In Heaven’s name, is there still noth- 
ing that tempts you? Have you no presents to 
make? no beloved relatives? no dear friends? 
Perhaps, though, your tastes run to stuffs and car- 
pets. Well, here too he can assist you as a friend. 
‘“‘ Behold, milor, this striped Kurdistan mantle, this 
lion skin; yonder rug is from Aleppo, with its little 
steel fastenings, while this Casablanca carpet, three 
fingers thick, is guaranteed to last for four genera- 
tions; here, Your Excellency, are old cushions, old 
brocade scarfs, old silken coverlids, a. little faded, a 
little frayed out at the edges, it is true, but such 
embroidery as you could not get in these days, even 
if you were to offer a fortune. You, caballero, have 
been brought here by a friend of mine, and for that 
reason I am going to let you have this ancient sash 
for the sum of five napoleons, and live myself on 
bread and garlic for one week in order to make up 
the loss.” Should even this magnificent offer fail to 
move you, he whispers in your ear that he has in 
his possession, and is moreover willing to sell, the 
very rope with which the terrible Seraglio mutes 


strangled Nassuh Pasha, Muhammad Third’s grand 


al 


5 


THE GREAT BAZAR. il 


vizier. And if you laugh in his face and decline to 
swallow it, he gives it up at once like a sensible 
man, and proceeds to make his final effort, display- 
ing before you, in rapid succession, a horse’s tail 
such as were once carried before and after every 
pasha; a janissary’s helmet, spattered with blood, 
which his own father picked up on the day of the 
famous massacre ; a scrap of one of the flags carried in 
the Crimea, showing the silver star and crescent; a 
wash-basin studded with agates; a brazier of beaten 
copper; a dromedary-collar with its shells and bells ; 
a eunuch’s whip made of hippopotamus leather; a 
gold-bound Koran ; a Khorassan scarf ; a pair of slip- 
pers from a kadyn’s wardrobe; a candlestick made 
from the claw of an eagle,—until at length your 
imagination is fired. The longing to possess breaks 
forth, and you are seized with a mad impulse to 
throw down your purse, watch, overcoat, everything 
you have, and fill your pockets with booty. One 
must indeed be an uncommonly well-balanced per- 
son, a very mountain of wisdom, to be able to with- 
stand the temptations of this place, whence many an 
artist has come forth as poor as Job, and where more 
than one rich man has thrown away his fortune. 

But before the Great Bazar closes let us take a 
turn around to see how it looks at the end of the 
day. The crowd moves along more hurriedly; shop- 
keepers call out to you and gesticulate more imperi- 


ously than ever; Greeks and Armenians run through 


156 THE GREAT BAZAR. 


the streets calling aloud, with shawls or rugs hung 
over their arms, or form into groups, bargaining and 
discussing as they move about, then break up and 
form again into other groups farther off; horses, car- 
riages, beasts of burden, all moving in the direction 
of the gateway, pass by in endless files. At this 
hour all those tradespeople with whom you have had 
fruitless negotiations during the day start to life 
again, circling around you in the dusk like so many 
bats: you see them peeping out from behind columns ; 
come suddenly upon them at every turn; they cross 
in front of you or pass close by you gazing ab- 
stractedly in the air, to remind you by their pres- 
ence of that certain rug or that bit of jewelry, 
and, if possible, reawaken your desire to possess it. 
Sometimes you are followed by a whole troop of 
them at once: if you stop, they do the same ; if you 
slip down a side street, you find them there before 
you; turning suddenly, you are aware of a dozen 
sharp eyes fixed upon you which seem to fairly 
devour you whole. But already: the fading light 
warns the crowd to disperse. Beneath the vaulted 
roof can be heard the voice of an invisible muezzin 
announcing the sunset from some wooden minaret. 
Some Turks have spread strips of carpet in the 
street before their shop-doors and are murmuring 
the evening prayer; others perform their ablutions 
at the fountains. The centenarians of the armor 


bazir have already shut to their great iron doors ; 


THE GREAT BAZAR. aay 


the smaller bazirs are empty; the farther ends of 
the corridors are lost in shadow, and the openings of 
the side streets look like the mouths of caves. Cam- 
els suddenly loom up close to you in the uncertain 
light; the voices of the water-carriers echo distantly 
among the arched roofs; the Turk quickens his step 
and the eunuch’s eyes grow more alert; strangers 
are seen hurrying away ; the entrance is closed; the 
day ended. 

And now on all sides I can hear the questions: 
What about St. Sophia? and the old Seraglio? and 
the Sultan’s palaces? and the Castle of the Seven 
Towers? and Abdul Aziz? and the Bosphorus. All 
in good time: each one of them shall be fully de- 
scribed in turn, but for still a little while longer let 
us wander here and there about the city, touching at 
every page upon some new theme just as some new 
idea strikes our fancy at every step. 





LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 











View of Stambul, Mosque of Validéh, and Bridge 





LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


Tue LIcut. 


AnD first of all I must speak of the light. One 
of my chief pleasures at Constantinople was to 
watch the sun rise and set from the bridge of the 
Validéh Sultan. At daybreak in the autumn there 
is almost always a light fog hanging over the Golden 
Horn, through which the city can only be seen indis- 
tinctly, as though one were looking through those 
thin gauze curtains which are lowered across the 
stage of a theatre in order to hide the details of some 
grand spectacular effect. Skutari is quite invisible ; 
only her hills, a vague outline, can be faintly traced 
against the eastern sky. The bridge, as well as 
both banks, is deserted. Constantinople is buried in 
slumber, and the profound silence and solitude lend 
solemnity and impressiveness to the scene.  Pres- 
ently behind the Skutari hills the sky begins to 
show streaks of gold, and, one by one, against that 
luminous background, the inky points of the cypress 
trees stand out clear and defined, like a company of 
giants drawn up in battle-array on the heights of her 
vast cemetery. Now a single ray of light flashes 

Vor.l—t1 161 


162 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


from one end to the other of the Golden Horn, like 
the first faint sigh of returning consciousness, as the 
great city stirs and slowly awakens once more to 
life. Then, behind the cypresses on the Asiatic shore, 
a fiery eye shines forth, and immediately upon the 
white summits of St. Sophia’s four minarets an an- 
swering blush is seen. In rapid succession from hill 
to hill, from mosque to mosque, to the farthest end 
of the Golden Horn, every minaret turns to rose, 
every dome to silver. The crimson flush creeps 
down from one terrace to another; the light in- 
creases, the veil is lifted, and all of Stambul lies re- 
vealed, rosy and resplendent on the heights, tinged 
with blue and violet shadows on the water’s edge, 
but everywhere fresh and sparkling as though just 
risen from the waves. In proportion as the sun 
rises higher and higher the delicacy of the first 
coloring disappears, swallowed up in the flood of 
dazzling light, which becomes so white and blind- 
ing as in turn to slightly obscure everything, until 
toward evening, when the glorious spectacle recom- 
mences. So clear does the atmosphere then become 
that from Galata you can easily distinguish each 
separate tree on the farthermost point of Kadi-keui. 
The huge profile of Stambul is thrown out against 
the sky with such distinctness and accuracy of de- 
tail that it would be quite possible to note one by 
one every minaret, every spire and cypress tree, 


that crowns her heights from Seraglio Point to the 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 163 


cemetery of Eytb. The waters of the Bosphorus 
and Golden Horn turn to a marvellous ultramarine ; 
the sky, of the color of amethysts in the east, grows 
fiery as it reaches Stambul, lighting up the horizon 
with a hundred tints of crimson and gold, making 
one think of the first day of creation. Stambul 
grows dim, Galata golden, while Skutari, receiving 
the full blaze of the setting sun upon her thousand 
easements, looks like a city devoured by flames. 
And this is the most perfect moment in all the 
twenty-four hours in which to see Constantinople. 
It is a rapid succession of the most exquisite tints— 
pale gold, rose, and lilac—mingling and blending one 
with another on the hillsides and water’s surface, 
lending to first one part of the city and then to 
another the finishing touch to its perfect beauty, and 
revealing a thousand modest charms of hill- and 
country-side, which were too shy to thrust them- 
selves into notice beneath the blaze of the noonday 
sun. It is then that you see the great melancholy sub- 
urbs losing themselves amid the shadows of the val- 
leys—little purple-tinted hamlets smiling on the hill- 
tops; towns and villages which languish and droop 
as though their life were ebbing away ; others disap- 
pear from view as you look at them, like fires which 
have been suddenly extinguished; others, again, 
apparently quite dead, come unexpectedly to life 
again, all aglow, and sparkle joyously for still some 


moments longer in the last rays of the sun. Finally, 


164 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


however, nothing remains but two shining summits 
on the Asiatic shore—Mt. Bulgurlt and the point 
of the cape which guards the entrance to’ the Pro- 
pontis. At first they are two golden coronets, then 
two little crimson caps, then two rubies; and then 
Constantinople is plunged in shadow, while ten 
thousand voices from ten thousand minarets an- 


nounce that the sun has set. 


THe Birps. 


Constantinople possesses a grace and gayety all 
her own emanating from her myriads of birds of 
every species, objects of especial veneration and 
affection among the Turks. Mosque and grove, 
ancient wall and garden, palace and courtyard, are 
full of song, of the cheerful sound of twittering and 
chirping; everywhere there is the rush of wings, 
everywhere the busy, active little lives go on. Spar- 
rows come boldly into the houses and eat from the 
women’s and children’s hands; swallows build their 
nests over the doorways of cafés and beneath the 
roofs of bazirs; innumerable flocks of pigeons, 
maintained by means of legacies from different sul- 
tans as well as private individuals, form black and 
white garlands around the cornices of the domes and 
terraces of the minarets; gulls circle joyously about 
the granaries; thousands of turtle-doves bill and coo 
among the cypress trees in the cemeteries; all 


around the Castle of the Seven Towers ravens croak 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 165 


and vultures hover significantly ; kingfishers come 
and go in long lines between the Black Sea and Sea 
of Marmora; while storks may be seen resting upon 
the domes of solitary mausoleums. For the Turk 
each one of these birds possesses some pleasing 
quality or lucky influence. The turtle-dove is the 
patron of lovers; the swallow will protect from fire 
any building where her nest is built; the stork per- 
forms a yearly pilgrimage to Mecca; while the 
halcyon carries the souls of the faithful to Paradise. 
Hence they feed and protect them both from re- 
ligious motives and from gratitude, and in return the 
birds make a continual festival around their houses, 
on the water, and among the tombs. In every 
quarter of Stambul they soar and circle about, 
grazing against you in their noisy flights, and filling 
the entire city with something of the joyous freedom 
of the open country, constantly bringing up before 


one’s mind images of nature. 


ASSOCIATIONS. 


In no other city of Europe do the sites and monu- 
ments, either legendary or historical, act so forcibly 
upon the imagination as at Stambul, because in no 
other spot do they record events at once so recent 
and so picturesque. Elsewhere, in order to get 
away from the prose of modern every-day life, one 
is obliged to go back for several centuries; at Stam- 


bul a few years suffice. Legend, or what has all 


166 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


the character and force of legend, dates from yester- 
day. It is not many years since, in the square of 
Et-Meidan, the celebrated massacre of the Janis- 
saries took place ; not many years since the waters 
of the Sea of Marmora cast up upon the banks of 
the imperial gardens those twenty sacks containing 
each the body of a beauty of Mustafa’s harem; not 
long since Brancovano’s family was executed in the 
Castle of the Seven Towers, or European ambassa- 
dors were pinioned between two kapuji-basci in the 
presence of the Grand Seigneur, upon whose half- 
averted countenance there glowed a mysterious 
light ; or within the walls of the old Seraglio that life 
—so extraordinary—a mingling of horrors, love, and 
folly, ceased finally to exist, which now seems to 
belong to such a far-distant past. Wandering about 
the streets of Stambul and reflecting upon all these 
things, you cannot help a feeling of astonishment at 
the calm, cheerful aspect of the city, gay with color 
and vegetation. ‘‘ Ah, traitoress !” you ery, “ what 
have you done with all those mountains of heads, 
those lakes of blood? How is it possible that every- 
thing has been so cleverly concealed, so wiped out 
and obliterated, that not a trace remains ?” 

On the Bosphorus, beneath the Seraglio walls and 
just opposite Leander’s Tower, which rises from the 
water like a lover’s monument, you may still behold 
the inclined plane down which the bodies of the un- 


faithful beauties of the harem were rolled into the 


- 
a ate 6 





- 
7 
: 
4) 
"4 
me a 
=| 
0 

4 4 - 

i ; J 
ae 

' 
e 
‘ 
i 
i 
‘ 
‘ 
oS 
' 
4 
- 
d 
> 
1 
a 
7 a i 





iy 


\ Zon 


yl 


Blin cee & we 





























= LIFE Ii coNMEAS HONOR 167 
= in the middle of the Ys-Meklan the sexpentine 
ee 


a 2 Salil ae inte hlow the adven= 


iPewith who haddyrs! % dies on asathona 


Bois fl willie cheese ow. Zaerenhl che 
ales hanson: Que teers of 
of AGA Sad tee BOR ie chadly 
pon dilate walinss waren | os 
print the boar that tatas be «tome 
dct Ansa Beayy dhitirwey, ore 
ory oe wa ane pen errors, Ye 
ietrarigeeyent—a tragedy, a boy sty. 
5 thie shephutism of a padtisi.«h or the rewk- 
fof @ pudtan& y eversthins bow «bo tory 
own, aa¢ wherever you tern the meer 
ge htt vem, the inns porfusrc ai, the 


: _ th these, histories aut tie prast ae of dja 
; Hee ed ‘the city Of tiedaw, g thot not in 


a. a3 owhen muddents Gunfrontad with) the sug- 
a that it is high times to. think of roturning to 
bon aay he sake hiinenlf confused! y what it means, 
“cha das thers bs a * hotel.” 
a | » Gelnentil Agar ha MBUANCER. 


“Wp those early dave 1 hoch. Trot bet id mashes of 


ee 


vee TH Me Hoty Wie. 24 fie Hades chureh 





ps 
Pe 


_ 


a 


= a ae 
- 7 
a _ - ; 
—— > 
¢ ~ a 
a va 
- = a 
e 
« 
. Pi 
ee mae 
ee F 
. 
Mm -e, 
j 


7 





LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 167 


sea; in the middle of the Et-Meidan the serpentine 
column still bears witness to the force of Muhammad 
the Conqueror’s famous sabre; on the Mahmid 
bridge the spot is still pointed out on which the 
fiery sultan annihilated at a single blow the adven- 
turous dervish who had dared to fling an anathema 
in his face; in the Holy Well of the Balukli church 
the miraculous fish still swim about which foretold the 
fall of the City of the Paleeologi; beneath the trees of 
the Sweet Waters of Asia you can visit those shady 
retreats where a dissolute sultana was wont to bestow 
upon the favorite of the hour that fatal love whose 
certain sequence was death. Every doorway, every 
tower, every mosque and park and open square, re- 
a tragedy, a love-story, 





cords some strange event 
a mystery, the absolutism of a padishah or the reck- 
less caprice of a sultana; everything has a history 
of its own, and wherever you turn the near-by ob- 
jects, the distant view, the balmy perfumed air, the 
silence, all unite to transport him whose mind is 
stored with these histories of the past out of him- 
self, his era, and the city of to-day, so that not in- 
frequently, when suddenly confronted with the sug- 
gestion that it is high time to think of returning to 
the hotel, he asks himself confusedly what it means, 


how can there be a “ hotel.” 


RESEMBLANCES. 


In those early days, fresh from reading masses of 


168 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


Oriental literature, I kept recognizing in the people 
I met on the streets famous personages who figure in 
the legends and history of the East: sometimes they 
answered so entirely to the picture I had drawn in 
my own mind of some celebrated character that I 
would find myself stopping short in the street to 
gaze after them. How often have I seized my 
friend’s arm, and, pointing out some passer-by, ex- 
claimed, “‘ There he goes, by Jove! Don’t you ree- 
ognize him?” In the square of the Sultan Valid¢h 
I have many a time seen the gigantic Turk who 
hurled down rocks and stones upon the heads of 
Baglione’s soldiers before the walls of Nicea; near 
one of the mosques I came across Unm Dgiemil, the 
old witch of Mecca who sowed thorns and brambles 
in front of Mohammed’s house; coming out of the 
book bazar one day, I ran against Digiemal-eddin, 
the great scholar of Brusa, who knew all the Arabian 
dictionary by heart, walking along with a volume 
tucked under his arm; I have passed close enough 
to Ayesha, the favorite wife of the Prophet, to re- 
ceive a steady look from those eyes ‘like twin stars 
reflected in a well.” I recognized in the Et-Meidan 
the beautiful and unfortunate Greek killed at the 
foot of the serpentine column by a ball from the 
huge guns of Orban; turning a sharp corner of one 
of the narrow streets of Phanar, I found myself 
suddenly face to face with Kara-Abderrahman, the 
handsomest young Turk of the days of Orkhan; I 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 169 


have seen Coswa, Mohammed’s she-camel, and rec- 
ognized Kara-bulut, Selim’s black charger; I have 
encountered poor Fighani, the poet, who was con- 
demned to go about Stambul harnessed to an ass for 
having made Ibrahim’s grand vizier the subject of 
alampoon; I saw in one of the cafés the unwieldy 
form of Soliman, the fat admiral, whom the united 
efforts of four powerful slaves could with difficulty 
drag up from his divan; and Ali, the grand vizier, 
who failed to find throughout all Arabia a horse fit 
to carry him; and Mahmid Pasha, that ferocious 
Hercules who strangled Suleiman’s son; and, estab- 
lished before the entrance of the copyists’ bazar 
near the Bayezid square, that stupid Ahmed IL., 
who would say nothing all day but ‘ Kose! 
kosc !” (Very well! very well!) Every character 
in the Thousand and One Nights—the Aladdins, the 
Zobeids, the Sinbads, the Gulnars, the old Jew 
dealers with their magic lamps and their enchanted 
carpets for sale—passed before me one after another 


like a procession of so many phantoms. 


COSTUMES. 

This is perhaps the very best period in which 
to study the dress of the Mussulman population of 
Constantinople. In the last generation, as_ will 
probably be the case in the next, it presented too 
uniform an appearance. You find it in a sort of 


transition stage, and presenting, consequently, a 


170 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


wonderful variety of form and color. The steady 
advance of the reform party, the resistance of the 
conservative Turks, the uncertainty and vacillation 
of the great mass of the people, hesitating between 
the two extremes—every aspect, in short, of the 
conflict which is being waged between ancient and 
modern Turkey—is faithfully reflected in the dress 
of her people. The old-fashioned Turk still wears his 
turban, his caftan and sash, and the traditional yel- 
low morocco slippers, and, if he is one of the more 
strict and precise kind, a veritable Turk of the old 
school, the turban will be of vast proportions. The 
reformed Turk wears a long black coat buttoned 
close up under the chin, and dark shoes and trousers, 
preserving nothing Turkish in his costume but the 
fez. Some among the younger and bolder spirits 
have eyen gone farther, and, discarding the black 
frock-coat, substitute for it an open cut-away, light 
trousers, fancy cravat and jewelry, and carry a cane, 
and a flower in the buttonhole. Between these and 
those, the wearers of the eaftan and the wearers of the 
coat, there is a deep gulf fixed. They no longer have 
anything in common but the name of Turk, and are in 
reality two separate nations. He of the turban still 
believes implicitly in the bridge Sirat, finer than a 
hair, sharper than a cimeter, which leads to the in- 
fernal regions; he faithfully performs his ablutions 
at the appointed hours, and at sunset shuts himself 


into his house. Ile of the frock-coat, on the con- 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. ef 


trary, laughs at the Prophet, has his photograph 
taken, talks French, and spends his evening at the 
theatre. 3etween these two extremes are those 
who, having departed somewhat from the ancient 
dress of their countrymen, are still unwilling to 
Europeanize themselves altogether. Some of them, 
while wearing turbans, yet have them so exceed- 
ingly small that some day they can be quietly ex- 
changed for the fez without creating too much 
scandal; others who still wear the caftan have 
already adopted the fez; others, again, conform to 
the general fashion of the ancient costume, but have 
left off the sash and slippers as well as the bright 
colors, and little by little will get rid of the rest as 
well. The women alone still adhere to their veils 
and the long mantles covering the entire person ; 
but the veil has grown transparent, and not infre- 
quently reveals the outline of a little hat and 
feathers, while the mantle as often as not conceals 
a Parisian costume of the latest mode. Every year 
a thousand ecaftans disappear to make room for as 
many black coats; every day sees the death of a 
Turk of the old school, the birth of one of the new. 
The newspaper replaces the tespi, the cigar the 
chibuk ; wine is used instead of flavored water, car- 
riages instead of the araba; the French grammar 
supersedes the Arabian, the piano the timbur ; stone 
houses rise on the sites of wooden ones. Everything 


is undergoing change and transformation. At the 


172 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


present rate it may well be that in less than a century 
those who wish to find the traces of ancient Turkey 
will be obliged to seek for them in the remotest prov- 
inces of Asia Minor, just as we now look for ancient 
Spain in the most out-of-the-way villages of Anda- 
lusia. 


CONSTANTINOPLE OF THE FUTURE. 


Often, while gazing at Constantinople from the 
bridge of the Sultan Validéh, I would be confronted 
by the question, ‘‘ What is to become of this city in 
one or two centuries, even if the Turks are not 
driven out of Europe?” Alas! there is but little 
doubt that the great holocaust of beauty at the 
hands of civilization will have been already accom- 
plished. I can see that Constantinople of the future, 
that Oriental London, rearing itself in mournful and 
forbidding majesty upon the ruins of the most ra- 
diant city in the world. Her hills will be levelled, 
her woods and groves cut down, her many-colored 
houses razed to the ground; the horizon will be shut 
in on all sides by long rows of palatial dwellings, 
factories, and workshops, broken here and there by 
huge business-houses and pointed spires; long, 
straight streets will divide Stambul into ten thou- 
sand square blocks like a checker-board ; telegraph- 
wires will interlace like some monster spider-web 
above the roofs of the noisy city ; across the bridge 
of the Sultan Validéh will pour a black torrent of 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 173 


stiff hats and caps; the mysterious retreats of the 
Seraglio will become a zoological garden, the Castle 
of the Seven Towers a penitentiary, the Hebdomon 
Palace a museum of natural history; everything 
will be solid, geometrical, useful, gray, hideous, and 
a thick black cloud of smoke will hide the blue 
Thracian heavens, to which no more ardent prayers 
will be addressed nor poets’ songs nor longing eyes 
of lovers. At such thoughts as these I could not 
help feeling my heart sink within me, but then 
quickly there came the consoling fancy that possibly 
—who knows ?—some charming Italian bride of the 
next century, coming here on her wedding journey, 
may be heard to exclaim, ‘‘ What a pity! what a 
dreadful pity it is that Constantinople has changed 
so from what it was at the period of that old torn 
book of the nineteenth century I found in the bot- 


tom of my grandmother’s clothes-press !” 


THe Doas. 


In those coming days another feature of Constanti- 
nopolitan life will also have disappeared, which is now 
one of the most curious of her curiosities—the dogs. 
And, as this is a subject which really merits atten- 
tion, I am going to devote some little space to it. 
Constantinople is one huge dog-kennel; every one 
ean see this for himself as soon as he gets there. 
The dogs constitute a second population in the city, 


and, while they are less numerous than the first, they 


174 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


are hardly less interesting as a study. Every one 
knows how the Turks love and protect them, but 
just why they do so is not so easy to decide. I 
could not, for my own part, make out whether it is 
because the Koran recommends all men to be mer- 
ciful to animals, or because they are supposed, like 
certain birds, to bring good luck, or because the 
Prophet loved them, or because they figure in their 
sacred books, or because, as some insist, when 
Muhammad the Conqueror made his victorious entry 
into the city through the breach in the gate of St. 
Romanus he was accompanied by a following com- 
posed principally of dogs. Be this as it may, the 
fact remains that many Turks leave considerable 
sums at their death for their maintenance, and when 
Sultan Abdul-Mejid had them all transported to the 
island of Marmora the people murmured, so that 
they were brought back amid public rejoicings, and 
the government has not attempted to interfere with 
them since. At the same time, the dog, having 
been pronounced by the Koran to be an unclean 
animal, not one out of all the innumerable hordes 
which infest Constantinople has an owner; any Turk 
harboring one would consider his house defiled. 
They are associated together in a great republic of 
freebooters, without collars or masters or kennels or 
homes or laws. Their entire lives are passed in the 
streets. There, scratching out little dens for them- 


selves, they sleep and eat, are born, nourish their 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 170 


young, and die; and no one, at least in Stambul, 
interferes in the smallest degree with their occupa- 
tions or their repose. They are the masters of the 
road. With us it is customary for the dogs to with- 
draw to allow horses and people to pass by. There 
it is quite different, people, camels, horses, donkeys, 
and vehicles making sometimes quite a considerable 
circuit in order not to disturb the dogs: sometimes 
in one of the most crowded quarters of Stambul four 
or five of them, curled up fast asleep directly in the 
middle of the street, will make the entire population 
turn out for half a day. And in Pera and Galata it 
is nearly as bad, only there it is done less out of re- 
spect for the dogs themselves than for their numbers. 
Were you to attempt to clear the road, you would 
have to keep up an uninterrupted series of blows 
and kicks from the moment you set out until your 
return. The utmost they will do voluntarily is, 
when they see a carriage and four coming like the 
wind down some level street, at the last moment, 
when there is no possible hope of its turning out and 
the horses’ hoofs are fairly grazing their backs, they 
will slowly and unwillingly drag themselves a couple 
of feet to one side, nicely calculating the least pos- 
sible distance necessary to save their precious necks. 
Laziness is the distinguishing quality of the Constan- 
tinople dogs. They lie down in the middle of the 
street, five or six or a dozen of them in a row or 


group, curled up im such a manner as to look much 


176 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


inore like heaps of refuse than living animals, and 
there they will sleep away the entire day, undis- 
turbed by the din and clamor going on about them, 
and not rain or sun, wind or cold, has the least 
power to affect them. When it snows, they sleep 
under the snow; when it rains, they stay on until they 
are so completely covered with mud that when they 
finally get up they look like unfinished clay models 
of dogs, with nothing to indicate eyes, ears, or 
mouth, 

The conditions of society, however, in Pera and 
Galata are not quite so favorable to the contempla- 
tive life as in Stambul, owing to the greater dif- 
ficulty in obtaining food: in the latter place they 
live en pension, while in the former they eat @ la 
carte. They take the place of scavengers, falling 
with joy upon refuse which hogs would decline as 
food, willing, in fact, to eat pretty much everything 
short of stones. No sooner have they swallowed 
sufficient to sustain life than they compose them- 
selves to slumber, and continue to sleep until 
aroused again by the pangs of hunger. And they 
almost always sleep in the same spot. The canine 
population of Constantinople is divided into settle- 
ments and quarters, just as the human population is. 
Kvery street and neighborhood is inhabited, or 
rather held possession of, by a certain number of 
dogs, the relatives and friends of one family, who 


never leave it themselves or allow strangers to come 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 177 


in. They have a sort of police force, with outposts 
and sentries, who gO the rounds and act as scouts. 
Woe to that dog who, emboldened by hunger, dares 
to adventure his person across the boundaries of his 


neighbors’ 


territory! A crowd of infuriated curs 
give chase the instant his presence is discovered ; if 
he is caught, they make short work of him; other- 
wise he is pursued as far as the confines of their own 
quarter, but no farther, as the enemy’s country is 
nearly always both feared and respected. It would 
be impossible to convey any just idea of the skir- 
mishes and pitched battles which arise over a dis- 
puted bone, a reigning belle, or an infringement of 
territorial rights. Two dogs encounter one another ; 
a dispute follows, and instantly reinforcements pour 
in from every street, lane, and alley; nothing can 
be seen but a confused, moving mass enveloped in 
clouds of dust, out of which there issues such a 
deafening hurlyburly of howls, yelps, and snarls as 
would crack the ear-drums even of a deaf man. At 
last the group breaks up again, and, as the dust sub- 
sides, the bodies of the fallen may be seen extended 
on the ground. Love-passages, jealousies, duels, 
bloodshed, broken limbs, and lacerated skins are the 
affairs of every hour. Occasionally they assemble 
in such noisy troops in front of some shop that the 
owner and his assistants are obliged, in the interests 
of trade, to arm themselves with stools and bars and 
sally forth in approved military style, taking the 


Vou. I.—12 


178 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


enemy by storm; and then there follows a pande- 
monium of howls, yells, and lamentations mingling 
with the sound of cracked heads and ribs, enough to 
fairly make the welkin ring. In Pera and Galata espe- 
cially these wretched beasts are so ill treated, so ac- 
customed to expect a blow whenever they sce a stick, 
that at the mere sound of a cane or umbrella on the 
sidewalk they make preparations for flight: even 
when they seem to be fast asleep they frequently 
have the corner of one eye, just the point of a pupil, 
open, with which to watch attentively, for a quarter 
of an hour at a time, the slightest movement of some 
distant object bearing a resemblance, no matter how 
slight, to a stick. So unused are they to humane 
treatment that if you pat the head of one of them 
in passing, a dozen others come running up, fawning 
and gambolling and wagging their tails, to receive a 
like caress, and accompany the generous patron all 
the way to the end of the street, their eyes shining 
with joy and gratitude. 

The condition of a dog in Pera and Galata is 
worse, all said, than that of a spider in Holland, and 
their’s is usually admitted to be the most persecuted 
race in all the animal kingdom. When one sees the 
existence led by these miserable dogs, it is impos- 
sible not to think that there must be for them, as 
well, some compensation in another world. Like 
everything else in Constantinople, the sight of them 


recalled an historical reminiscence, but in their case 















(Me OS CONPTANTINOFLS. 179 


PO) tte liky the bitterest Irony to picture the life 
af Mayesid's famous hunting-pack, who ran about, 
ge ee eee oF lyme eating peepee ae 
UF social conditions! Their aufortunste siute hae 
a SR geile bob rreplegrara 
is mastiff breed Sedalidoans bebehig OMe Te 
iblance ta both: foxes and wolves. oe rather they 
ena Doar a resemblance to aiything, but are a 
‘2 ply race of wengrels, spotted over with strange 
emere—nbout ax large us the s-calledt butcher's dog, 
, nih @ach rib can be cousted twenty fout 
i, them, moreover, have became so re- 
ae uf @ life of incessant warfare 
you did wot eee thew merwingy about you would 
pi to take thin for the iwatilated romaine of 
; e find them with their, taile cnt off, care 
ond # oe =. “Shinned backs, idles laid Oper, bina if 
; a poye, tae -i ii two legs, coverdd with wounds, de 
acer Mies, rediced to the last possi) le ats ages th 


hy ) aeteh a Living dn tin be brought—veritable types 
7 at Wal, famine, und pestilence. The tail-may be 


4 ‘ppakten OG Mh connertion with thon, ax an articloof _ 
a Rotary : rare is ity indewd, fr « Constantinople dog 
we bnjoy the possession of ope ihr more than a couple 
OF tons, at nicst, of public life. Poor creatures ! : 
they Wold move G6 roup of } Dogs pity, ant yet 
At tines they are so grotesquely manned aod altered, 

















“jz 








LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 179 


it seemed like the bitterest irony to picture the life 
of Bayezid’s famous hunting-pack, who ran about 
the imperial forests of Olympia wearing purple trap- 
pings and collars set with pearls. What a contrast 
of social conditions! Their unfortunate state has 
no doubt a great deal to do with their hideous ap- 
pearance, but, apart from that, they are almost all 
of the mastiff breed or wolf-dogs, bearing some re- 
semblance to both foxes and wolves. or rather they 
do not bear a resemblance to anything, but are a 
horrible race of mongrels, spotted over with strange 
colors—about as large as the so-called butcher’s dog, 
and so thin that each rib can be counted twenty feet 
off. Most of them, moreover, have become so re- 
duced in the course of a life of incessant warfare 
that if you did not see them moving about you would 
be apt to take them for the mutilated remains of 
dogs. You find them with their tails cut off, ears 
torn, with skinned backs, sides laid open, blind in 
one eye, lame in two legs, covered with wounds, de- 
voured by flies, reduced to the last possible stages to 
which a living dog can be brought—veritable types 
of war, famine, and pestilence. The tail may be 
spoken of, in connection with them, as an article of 
luxury: rare is it, indeed, for a Constantinople dog 
to enjoy the possession of one for more than a couple 
of months, at most, of public life. Poor creatures! 
they would move a heart of stone to pity, and yet 


at times they are so grotesquely maimed and altered, 


180 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


you see them going along with such a singular gait, 
such odd, ungainly movements, that it is almost im- 
possible not to laugh outright. And, after all, 
neither hunger nor blows, nor even warfare, consti- 
stitutes their most serious trial, but a cruel custom 
which has prevailed for some time in Pera and 
Galata. Sometimes in the middle of the night the 
peaceful inhabitants of a quarter are aroused from 
their slumbers by a diabolical uproar: rushing to 
their windows, they behold a crowd of dogs leaping 
and dancing about in agony, bounding high in the 
air, striking their heads against the walls, or rolling 
over and over in the dust: presently the uproar sub- 
sides, and in the morning, by the early light, the 
street is seen all strewn with dead bodies. It is the 
doctor or apothecary of the quarter, who, being in 
the habit of studying at night, has distributed a 
handful of pills in order to obtain a fortnight’s 
quiet. Through these and other means it happens 
that there is some slight decrease in the number of 
dogs in Pera and Galata; but what does this avail, 
since at Stambul they are so rapidly on the increase 
that it is merely a question of time when the supply 
of food there will prove insufficient for their support, 
and colonists will be sent over to the other shore to 
supply the places of those families which have been 
exterminated and fill up all blanks caused by war, 


famine, or poison. 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 181 


THE EUNUCHS. 


But there are other beings in Constantinople whe 
arouse a far more profound sentiment of pity than 
the dogs. The eunuchs, who were first introduced 
among the Turks in spite of the clear and unmis- 
takable voice of the Koran, which denounced this in- 
famous form of degradation in no measured terms, 
continue to exist in defiance of recent legislation 
prohibiting the inhuman traffic, smce stronger than 
either law or religion are the abominable thirst for 
gold which induces the crime and the cowardly ego- 
tism which derives advantage from it. These un- 
fortunates are to be met at every street-corner, just 
as they are encountered on every page of history. 
In the background of every historical scene in 
Turkey may be traced one of these sinister forms 
grasping the threads of a conspiracy, laden with 
gold, or stained with blood—victim, favorite, or in- 
strument of vengeance; if not openly formidable, 
secretly so; standing like a spectre in the shadow 
of the throne or blocking the approach to some 
mysterious doorway. And the sathe way in Con- 
stantinople: in the midst of a crowded bazar, 
among the throng of pleasure-seekers at the Sweet 
Waters, beneath the columns of the mosques, beside 
the carriages, on the steamboats, in kiiks, at all the 
festivals, wherever people are assembled together, 


one sees these phantoms of men, these melancholy 


182 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


countenances, like a dark shadow thrown across 
every aspect of gay Oriental life. With the de- 
cline of the absolutism of the Sultan their political 
power has waned, just as the relaxing of Oriental 
jealousy has diminished their importance in private 
life; the advantages they once enjoyed have conse- 
quently become greatly reduced, and it is only with 
considerable difficulty that they are now able to 
acquire sufficient wealth or power to in any measure 
compensate them for their misfortune. No Ghaz- 
nefér Agha would now be forthcoming to submit vol- 
untarily to mutilation in order to become chief of 
the white eunuchs; all those of the present day are 
unwilling victims, and victims who receive no ade- 
quate compensation. Bought or stolen as children 
in Abyssinia or Syria, about one in every three sur- 
vives the infamous knife, to be sold in defiance of 
the law, and with a pretence of secresy far more re- 
volting than if it were done openly. There is no 
need to have them pointed out: any one can recog- 
nize them at a glance. They are usually tall, fat, 
and flabby, with smooth, colorless faces, short waists, 
and long legs and arms. They wear fezzes, long 
black coats, and European trousers, and carry a 
whip made of hippopotamus skin, their badge of 
office, walking with long strides, and softly like big 
children. When on duty they accompany their 
mistresses on foot or horseback, sometimes preced- 


ing, sometimes following after, the carriage, either 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 183 


singly or in pairs, and looking around them with an 
ever-watchful eye, which, at the slightest suggestion 
of disrespect either by look or gesture on the part 
of a passer-by, becomes so full of angry menace as 
to send a cold chill down one’s backbone; but, ex- 
cept in some such case as this, they have either no 
expression at all or else an utter weariness of every- 
thing in the world. I cannot recollect ever having 
seen one of them laugh. Some among them, while 
very young, look fifty years old, and others, again, 
give one the impression of youths who have sud- 
denly, in the course of a few hours, grown into old 
men; many of them, sleek, soft, and well-rounded, 
look like carefully-fattened animals. They wear fine 
clothing, and are as scrupulously neat and redolent 
of perfume as some vain young girl. There are 
men so heartless as to laugh in the faces of these 
unhappy creatures as they pass them on the street ; 
possibly they imagine that, having been accustomed to 
it from infancy, they are unconscious or nearly so of 
the gulf which divides them from the rest of the hu- 
man family. But it is perfectly well known that this is 
not the case; and, indeed, who, after giving the sub- 
ject a moment’s thought, could suppose that it was ? 
To belong to neither sex; to be merely the phan- 
tom of a man; to live in the midst of life, and yet 
not of it; to feel the billows of human_ passion 
surging all about you and be obliged to remain cold, 


impassive, unmoved, like a reef in the storm; to 


184 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


have your very thoughts, the natural promptings of 
your whole being, held in check by an iron band 
that no amount of virtuous effort on your part will 
ever avail to bend or break; to have constantly 
presented before your eyes a picture of happiness 
toward which all around you tends, the centre about 
which everything circulates, the illuminating cause 
of all the conditions of life, and to know yourself 
immeasurably far away in the outside darkness, in 
a cold immensity of space, like some wandering 
spirit accursed of God; and to be, moreover, your- 
self the guardian of that happiness in which you 
can never participate, the actual barrier which the 
jealousy of man has reared between his own felicity 
and the outside world, the bolt with which he makes 
fast his door, the cloth he uses to conceal his treas- 
ures; to be obliged to live in the very midst of that 
sensuous, perfumed existence of youth and beauty 
and enjoyment, with shame upon your brow and 
fury in your soul, despised, set aside, without name, 
without family, without a mother or so much as one 
tender memory, cut off from the common ties of 
nature and humanity,—who could doubt for one in- 
stant that theirs is a life of torment which the mind 
is powerless to grasp, like living with a dagger thrust 
into one’s heart ? 

And this outrage still continues: these unhappy 
creatures walk the streets of a European city, live 


among men, and, wonderful to relate, refrain from 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 185 


tearing, biting, stabbing, spitting in the face of that 
cowardly humanity which dares to look them in the 
eye without either shame or pity, while it busies 
itself with international associations for the protec- 
tion of dogs and cats! Their whole existence is 
nothing but a series of tortures: as soon as the 
women of the harem find that they are unwilling to 
connive at their intrigues, they look upon them as 
spies and jailers, and hate them accordingly, pun- 
ishing them by every device of coquetry that lies in 
their power until they sometimes drive them quite 
beyond all bounds, as in the case of the poor black 
eunuch in the Lettere persiane, who put his mistress 
in the bath. The very names they bear are a bitter 
irony, being called after flowers and perfumes, in 
allusion to the ladies whose guardians they are, as 
possessors of hyacinths, guardians of lilies, custo- 
dians of roses and of violets. And sometimes, poor 
wretches! they fall in love and are jealous and 
chafe, and become shedders of blood, or, seeing that 
some ardent glance directed toward their lady is re- 
turned, they lose their heads altogether and strike, 
as happened once during the Crimean War, when a 
eunuch struck a French officer in the face, and had 
his own head cut open in consequence by the other’s 
sword. Who can tell what they suffer or how the 
mere sight of beauty must sometimes torture them, 
a caress enrage, a smile torment them, the sound of 
a kiss given and returned cause their hands to steal 


186 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


toward the dagger’s hilt? It is hardly to be won- 
dered at that in their great empty hearts little 
flourishes beside the cold passions of hate, revenge, 
and ambition; that they grow up embittered, cow- 
ardly, envious, and savage; that they have either 
the dumb, unreasoning devotion of an animal for 
their owners, or else are cunning and treacherous ; 
or that, when they do get into power, they use it to 
revenge themselves upon mankind for the affront 
put upon them. The more desolate and isolated 
their lot, so much the more do they seem to 
feel a necessity for female companionship. Unable 
to be her lover, they seek to be the friend of woman. 
They even marry, sometimes choosing for their 
wives women who are pregnant, as Sunbullin, 
Ibrahim’s chief eunuch, did, so as to have a child to 
love as his own, or, like the head eunuch of Ahmed 
II., they have harems filled with virgins in order 
that they may enjoy the contemplation and society 
of female loveliness; others adopt young girls, so 
that in old age they may have a female breast 
upon which to recline and not go down to the 
grave ignorant of all tenderness and loving care, 
having had nothing all their lives but scorn and 
contempt, or at best indifference. It is not uncom- 
mon for those who have grown wealthy at court 
or in some princely establishment, where they have 
combined with the duties of chief eunuch those of 


intendant, to purchase in old age a pretty villa on 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 187 


the Bosphorus, and there to pass the remainder of 
their days in feasting and gayety, seeking by these 
means to blot out the recollection of their misfortune. 

Among all the various tales and anecdotes which 
were told me about these unfortunate beings one 
stands out with peculiar clearness in my memory. 
It was related by a young doctor of Pera in denial 
of the statement, sometimes made, that eunuchs do 
not suffer. 

‘One evening,” said he, “I was leaving the house 
of a wealthy Mussulman, one of whose four wives 
was ill with heart disease; it was my third visit, 
and on coming away, as well as on entering, I was 
always preceded by a tall eunuch who called aloud 
the customary warning, ‘Women, withdraw,’ in 
order that the ladies and female slaves might know 
that there was a man in the harem and keep out of 
sight. On reaching the courtyard the eunuch re- 
turned, leaving me to make my way out alone. On 
this occasion, just as I was about to open the door, 
I felt a light touch on my arm: turning around, I 
found, standing close by me, another eunuch, a good- 
looking youth of eighteen or twenty, who stood gaz- 
ing silently at me, his eyes filled with tears. Find- 
ing that he did not speak, I asked him what I could 
do for him. He hesitated a moment, and then, 
clasping my hand convulsively in both of his, he 
said in a hoarse voice, in which there was a ring of 


despair, ‘Doctor, you know some remedy for every 


188 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


malady; tell me, is there none for mine? I cannot 
express to you the effect those simple words produced 
upon me: I wanted to answer him, but my voice 
seemed to die away, and finally, not knowing what 
to do or say, I pulled the door open and fled. But 
all that night and for many days after I kept seeing 
his face and hearing those mournful words; and I 
can tell you that more than once I could feel the 
tears rising at the recollection.” 

Philanthropists, journalists, ministers, ambassa- 
dors, and you, gentlemen, deputies to the Stambul 
Parliament and senators of the Crescent, raise an 
outcry in God’s name that this hideous ignominy, 
this black stain on the honor of mankind, may in 
the twentieth century be merely another dreadful 


memory like the Bulgarian atrocities. 


THE ARMY. 

Although I was fully aware before going to Con- 
stantinople that no traces of the magnificent army 
of former days were still to be seen, nevertheless, as 
soldiers are always a source of lively interest to me, 
I had no sooner arrived than I began to look about 
for them with eager curiosity. What I found, how- 
ever, fell short of even what I had been led to ex- 
pect. In place of the ancient costume, flowing, 
picturesque, and eminently warlike, they have 
adopted an ugly, forlorn uniform, consisting of red 


trousers, little scant jackets, stripes like a lackey’s 


bez 


= 


Of LAL EP goygiere 


iy + i 


eae ee eet ot Groin, 
LE a tee ee 


pe Lae | 
ead 






















ive ON CONST AN TERROPLE 


tell ee, ie there ane foe ame IC 

» ro ewe the vet thowe alinple worda ign 

von el. ) BARRIOS SEIDEL SF 9, saday bei oe 
\ ee Soe astm, sind finally, aot ages 

e vent ae 
all thes Mpanbeebuinesl co 
Win Fane mel intone Eee 
ou t!) you that more Bian: once I 
+ osog at-the recoltection.”) 27 





beri @ and senators of abet 

ev. he Godly nas ee 
fucks - tei on tho. honor! of 
wenteth. centary be imerely:a 

20 Uae sue the Big tevin, 


Tie’ Ree 


ong: Lawas nly ae ee 
cotvuephe ¢hetne. trasedot diet 
voreneyh-alaggee were: still tobe sang 
vi¢  a#e ‘alwys a sonree GF Hyak ts 
: ener arrived than I began to-look: 
-) Sager curiosity. Whe? tail 
of even what T had been ded 
1) leew a te erent ooatume, 
nial Pree warlike, they 
|), florg vuniform, consisting of te 

«) jackets, stripes like a lack 





LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 189 


livery, belts like those of college students, and on 
every head, from the Sultan’s down to the lowest 
man in the ranks, that miserable fez, which, be- 
sides being undignified and puerile, especially when 
perched on the head of a big, stout Mussulman, is 
the direct cause of any amount of ophthalmia and 
headache. The brilliancy of the Turkish army is 
lost, without any of that which belongs to the 
European military having been gained. The sol- 
diers looked to me a mournful, half-hearted, dirty 
set of men. They may be brave, but they are cer- 
tainly not impressive; and as to the nature of their 
training, one may form some idea of that from see- 
ing officers and men employing their fingers in the 
street in place of handkerchiefs. One day I saw the 
soldier on guard at the bridge, where smoking is not 
allowed, bring this fact to the knowledge of a vice- 
consul by snatching the cigar out of his mouth; and 
on another occasion, in the mosque of the Dancing 
Dervishes, on the Rue de Pera, a soldier informed 
three Europeans that they were expected to uncover 
by knocking their hats off before my eyes: I knew 
very well that to raise a protesting voice on such 
occasions would mean nothing less than being seized 
and carried off bodily, like a bundle of old rags, to 
the guard-house. Hence throughout my entire stay 
at Constantinople my attitude toward the military 
was one of profound deference. On the other hand, 


one ceases to wonder at the uncouthness of the sol- 


190 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


diers after seeing what sort of people they are 
before donning the uniform. One day in Skutari a 
hundred or so recruits, probably brought from the 
interior of Asia Minor, passed close by me, and it 
was a sight which aroused both my compassion and 
my disgust. They looked like those terrible bandits 
of Hassin the Mad who passed through Constan- 
tinople toward the close of the sixteenth century 
on their way to die by the Austrian cannon on 
the plain of Pesth. I can see before me now their 
wild, sinister faces, rough shocks of hair, half- 
naked, tattooed bodies, and barbarous ornaments, 
and I seem to smell again the close, sickening 
odor, like that of wild animals’ dens, which they 
left behind them in the street. When the first news 
was brought of the massacres in Bulgaria, at once 
my thoughts turned to them. ‘‘ My Skutari friends, 
beyond a doubt,” I said to myself. It is a fact, how- 
ever, that they form the one solitary picturesque 
feature which I am able to recall of the Mussulman 
army. 

O glorious pageant of Bayezid, of Suleiman, 
of Muhammad! could one but behold you just once 
from the walls of Stambul, drawn up in glitter- 
ing array upon the plain of Datid Pasha! Every 
time I passed the triumphal gate of Adrianapolis I 
would be haunted by this brilliant vision, and pause 
to gaze fixedly at the opening, as though expecting 


each moment to see the pasha quartermaster come 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 191 


forth, heralding the approach of the imperial 
troops. 

It was, in fact, the pasha quartermaster who 
marched at the head of the army, with two horse- 
tails, his insignia of rank, while behind him for a 
great distance flashed and glistened in the sunlight 
certain objects which were nothing less than the 
eight thousand brazen spoons fastened in the folds 
of the Janissaries’ turbans; in their midst could be 
seen the waving herons’ plumes and glittering ar- 
mor of the colonels, followed by a crowd of servants 
laden with arms and provisions. Behind the Janis- 
saries came a small troop of volunteers and pages 
dressed in silk, with iron mail, and shining head- 
pieces, accompanied by a band of music; after 
them, the cannoneers, with the cannon fastened 
together by means of metal chains; and then an- 
other small band of aghas, pages, chamberlains, and 
feudal soldiers, mounted on steeds with plumes and 
breast-plates. All of these were only the advance- 
guard, above whose closely-packed ranks floated 
thousands of brilliantly colored standards, waving 
horse-tails, and such a sea of lances, swords, bows, 
quivers, and arquebuses that it was not easy to dis- 
tinguish the lines of swarthy faces burned by ex- 
posure in the Candian and Persian wars; accom- 
panying them was the discordant sound of drum and 
flute, of trombone and kettledrum, mingling with 


the voices of the singers who escorted the Janis- 


192 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


saries, and, with the rattle of arms, clanking of 
chains, and hoarse cries of Allah, forming a mighty 
roar, at once inspiriting and terrible, which could be 
heard from the Datid Pasha camp to the other bank 
of the Golden Horn. O poets and painters, you 
who have dwelt with loving touch upon every pic- 
turesque detail of that vanished life of the Orient! 
come to my aid now, that together we may recall to 
life the Third Muhammad’s famous army and send it 
forth, brilliant and complete, from the ancient walls 
of Stambul. 

Passed the advance-guard, we see another glitter- 
ing body of troops. Is it the Sultan? No, as yet 
the deity has barely quitted his temple. This is 
only the favorite vizier’s retinue, consisting of forty 
aghas clad in sable, and mounted upon horses ca- 
parisoned with velvet and with silver bits in their 
mouths ; behind them are a crowd of pages and gor- 
geous grooms, leading other forty horses by the 
bridle, with gilded harness, and laden with shields, 
maces, and cimeters. 

Another troop advances. This is not the Sultan, 
either, but a body of state officials—the chief treas- 
urer, members of the council, and the high digni- 
taries of the Seraglio—and with them a band of 
players and a throng of volunteers wearing purple 
caps decorated with birds’ wings and dressed in 


furs, scarlet silk, leopard skins, and Hungarian 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 193 


kolpaks, armed with long lances entwined with silk 
and garlands of flowers. 

Still another sparkling wave of horsemen pours 
out of the Adrianapolis gate, but it is not the Sultan 
yet. This is the train of the grand vizier. First 
comes a crowd of mounted arquebusiers, furiert, and 
aghas, all high in favor with the Grand Seigneur ; 
after them forty aghas of the grand vizier, sur- 
rounded by a forest of twelve hundred bamboo 
lances, borne by twelve hundred pages, and then 
the forty pages of the grand vizier clad in orange 
color and armed with bows, their quivers richly or- 
namented with gold. Following them are two hun- 
dred more youths, divided into six bands, each band 
having a distinctive color, and, riding in their midst, 
the governors and relatives of the chief minister ; 
after these come a throng of grooms, armor-bearers, 
employés, servants, pages, and aghas, wearing gold- 
embroidered garments, and a troop of standard-bear- 
ers carrying aloft a multitude of silken flags; and 
last the kid@ya, minister of the interior, escorted by 
twelve sciau, or legal executioners, followed by the 
grand vizier’s band. 

Another host pours out from the city-walls, and 
still it is not the Sultan, but a throng of scvau, Juriert, 
and underlings, gorgeously attired and forming the 
retinues of the jurisconsults, the molla and muderri ; 
close behind them are the head-masters of the fal- 
con, vulture, hawk, and kite hunts, followed by a 

Votl. 13 


194 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


line of horsemen carrying on their saddles leo. 
pards trained for the chase, and a crowd of falcon- 
ers, esquires, grooms with ferrets, standard-bear- 
ers, and drummers, and packs of caparisoned and 
bejewelled dogs. 

Another brilliant concourse sweeps out: the crowds 
of spectators prostrate themselves. At last the Sul- 
tan? No, not yet. This is not the head of the army, 
but its heart, the holy flame of courage and religious 
enthusiasm, the sacred ark of the Mussulman, 
around which mountains of decapitated heads have 
been reared, torrents of human blood have flowed— 
the green ensign of the Prophet, the flag among 
flags, taken from its place in the mosque of Sultan 
Ahmed, and now floating in the midst of a ferocious 
mob of dervishes clad in lion and bear skins, a circle 
of rapt-looking preaching sheikhs in camel’s-hair 
cloaks, and two companies of emirs, descendants of 
the Prophet, wearing the green turban; all of whom 
together raise a hoarse clamor of shouts, prayers, 
shrill cries, and singing. 

Another imposing troop of horsemen herald the 
approach, not of the Sultan yet, but of the judiciary, 
the judge of Constantinople and chief judge of Asia 
and Europe, whose enormous turbans may be seen 
towering above the heads of the sciau, who brandish 
their silver maces to clear a space for them through 
the crowd. With them ride the favorite vizier and 


vizier kaimakam, their turbans decorated with silver 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 195 


stars and braided with gold; all the viziers of the 
Divan, before whom are borne horse-tails dyed with 
henné, attached to the ends of long red and blue 
poles; and last of all the military judges, followed 
by a train of attendants dressed in leopard skins 
and armed with lances—pages, armor-bearers, and 
sutlers. 

The next company pours out, glittering, magnif- 
icent. Surely the Sultan? No—the grand vizier, 
wearing a purple caftan lined with sable and 
mounted upon a horse fairly covered with steel and 
gold, he is followed by a throng of attendants clad 
in red velvet, and a crowd of high dignitaries, and 
the lieutenant-generals of the Janissaries, among 
whom the muftis shine out like swans in the midst 
of a flock of peacocks; after these, between two 
lines of spearmen carrying gilded spears and two 
lines of archers with crescent-shaped plumes, come 
the gorgeous grooms of the Seraglio, leading by the 
bridle a long file of horses from Arabia, Turkestan, 
Persia, and Caramania, their saddles of velvet, reins 
gilded, stirrups chased, and trappings covered with 
silver spangles, and laden with shields and arms 
glittering with jewels; finally the two sacred camels 
are seen, bearing one the Koran, the other a frag- 
ment of the Kaaba. 

The grand vizier’s retinue has passed, and a 
deafening clamor of drums and trumpets assails the 


ear. The spectators fly in every direction, cannon 


196 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


roar, a multitude of running footmen pour through 
the gate brandishing their cimeters, and here at last, 
in the midst of a thick forest of spears, plumes, and 
swords, the central point of those dazzling ranks of 
gold and silver head-pieces, beneath a cloud of 
waving satin banners, behold the Sultan of sultans, 
King of kings, the dispenser of thrones to the 
princes of the world, the shadow of God upon earth, 
emperor and sovereign lord of the White Sea and of 
the Black, of Rumelia and Anatolia, of the province 
of Salkadr, of Diarbekr, of Kurdistan, Aderbigian, 
Agiem, Sciam, Haleb, Egypt, Mecca, Medina, Jeru- 
salem, the coasts of Arabia and Yemen, together 
with all the other dominions conquered by the arms 
of his mighty predecessors and august ancestors or 
subdued by his own flaming and triumphant sword. 
The solemn and imposing train sweeps slowly by. 
Now and again, the serried columns swaying a little 
to right or left, a glimpse is caught of the three 
jewelled plumes which surmount the turban of the 
deity, the serious, pallid countenance, the breast 
blazing with diamonds; then the ranks close in once 
more, the cavalcade passes on, the threatening cim- 
eters are lowered, the bystanders raise their bowed 
heads, the vision disappears. 

After the imperial retinue a crowd of court of- 
ficials come, one carrying on his head the Sultan’s 
stool, another his sabre, another his turban, another 


his mantle, a fifth the silver coffee-pot, a sixth the 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 19% 


golden coffee-pot; then more troops of pages, and 
after them the white eunuchs; then three hundred 
mounted chamberlains in white caftans, and the hun- 
dred carriages of the harem with silvered wheels, 
drawn by oxen hung with garlands of flowers or 
horses with velvet trappings, and escorted by a troop 
of black eunuchs; then three hundred mules file by 
laden with baggage and treasures from the court ; 
after them a thousand camels carrying water and a 
thousand dromedaries laden with provisions; next a 
crowd of miners, armorers, and workmen of various 
kinds from Stambul, accompanied by a rabble of 
buffoons and conjurers; and finally the bulk of the 
fighting ranks of the army—hordes of Janissaries, 
yellow silidars, purple azabs, spahis with red en- 
signs, foreign cavalry with white standards, cannon 
that belch forth blocks of lead and marble, the feu- 
dal soldiery from three continents, barbarian volun- 
teers from the outlying provinces of the empire, 
seas of flags, forests of plumes, torrents of turbans— 
an iron avalanche on its way to overrun Europe like 
a curse sent from God, in whose track will be found 
nothing but a desert strewn with smoking ruins and 


heaps of skulls. 


IDLENESS. 


Although at certain hours of the day Constanti- 
nople wears an air of bustle and activity, in reality 


it is probably the laziest city in Europe, and in this 


198 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


respect both Turk and Frank meet on common 
ground. Every one begins by getting up at the 
latest possible hour in the morning. Even in sum- 
mer, at a time when our cities are up and doing 
from one end to the other Constantinople is. still 
buried in slumber. It is difficult to find a shop open 
or so much as to procure a cup of coffee until the 
sun is well up in the heavens. Hotels, offices, 
bazars, banks, all snore together in one joyous 
chorus, and nothing short of a cannon would arouse 
them. Then the holidays! The Turks keep Friday, 
the Jews Saturday, and the Christians Sunday, be- 
sides which regular weekly ones are all the feast- 
days of the innumerable saints of the Greek and 
Armenian calendars, which are scrupulously ob- 
served; and although all of these holidays are sup- 
posed to affect only certain parts of the community 
respectively, in reality they provide large num- 
bers, with whom, properly speaking, they have 
nothing whatever to do, with an excuse for being 
idle. You can thus form some idea of the amount 
of work accomplished in the course of a week. 
There are some offices which are only open twenty- 
four hours in the seven days. Each day some one 
of the five nationalities who go to make up the pop- 
ulation of Constantinople is rambling about over the 
hig city with no other object in the world than to 
kill time. In this art, however, the Turk yields to 


none. Ile can make a cup of coffee, costing two 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 199 


sous, last half a day, and sit immovable for five 
hours at a stretch at the foot of a cypress tree in 
one of the innumerable cemeteries. His indolence 
is a thing absolute and complete, an inertia resem- 
bling death or sleep, in which all the faculties seem 
to be suspended—an utter absence of any sort of 
emotion, a phase of existence completely unknown 
among Europeans. Turks dislike so much as_ to 
have the idea of movement presented to their minds. 
At Stambul, for instance, where there are no public 
walks, it is extremely unlikely that the Turks would 
frequent them if there were: to go to a place de- 
signed expressly for the purpose of being walked 
about in would, to their way of thinking, resemble 
work entirely too much. They enter the nearest 
cemetery or turn down the first street they come 
to, and follow, without any objective point, wherever 
their legs or the windings of the path or the people 
ahead may lead them. A Turk rarely goes to any 
spot merely for the purpose of seeing it. There are 
those among them, living in Stambul, who have 
never been farther than Kassim-Pasha; Mussulman 
gentlemen who have never gotten beyond the Isles 
of the Princes, where they happen to have a friend 
living, or their own villa on the Bosphorus. For 
them the height of bliss consists in complete inac- 
tivity of body and mind; hence they abandon to the 
restless Christian all those great industries which re- 


quire care and thought and travelling about from one 


200 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


place to another, and content themselves with such 
small trades as can be conducted sitting down in 
the same spot, and where sight can almost take the 
place of speech. Labor, which with us governs and 
regulates all the conditions of life, is a thing of quite 
secondary importance there, subordinated to what is 
pleasant and convenient. We look upon repose as 
a necessary interruption to work, while to them work 
is merely a suspension of repose. The first object, 
at all costs, is to sleep, dream, and smoke for a cer- 
tain number of hours out of the twenty-four; what- 
ever time is left over may be employed in gaining 
one’s livelihood. Time, as understood by the Turks, 
signifies something altogether different from what it 
does to us. The hour, day, month, year, has not 
a hundredth part of the value there that it has in 
other parts of Europe. The very shortest period 
required by any official of the Turkish government 
in which to answer the simplest form of inquiry is 
two weeks. These people do not know what it is to 
desire to finish a thing for the mere pleasure of hay- 
ing done with it, and, with the single exception of 
the porters, one never sees a Turk employed on any 
business hurrying in the streets of Stambul. All 
walk with the same measured tread, as though their 
steps were regulated by the beat of a single drum. 
With us life is a seething torrent; with them, a 


sleeping pool. 


4 








- 4 
- 
y 
4 
————— 


ree 


.f 


A) 
iT en | 
ein 1 
vi vi oe Tie 
at 


-)| 





my * ; 
4 : 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 201 


NIGHT. 


As by day Constantinople is the most brilliant, so 
by night it is the gloomiest, city in Europe. Ocea- 
sional street-lamps, placed at long distances one from 
the other, hardly suffice to pierce the gloom of the 
principal streets, while the others are as black as 
caves, and not to be ventured into by one who car- 
ries no light in his hand. Hence by nightfall the 
city 1s practically deserted: the only signs of life 
are the night-watchmen, prowling dogs, the skulking 
figure of some law-breaker, parties of young men 
coming out of a subterranean tavern, and mysterious 
lights which appear and vanish again like ignis fatua 
down some narrow side-street or in a distant ceme- 
tery. This is the hour in which to look at Stambul 
from the heights of Pera or Galata. Each one of 
her innumerable little windows is illuminated, and, 
with the lights from the shipping, reflections in the 
water and the starry heavens, helps to light up four 
miles of horizon with a great quivering sea of spark- 
ling points of fire, in which port, city, and sky melt 
imperceptibly one into another until they all seem 
to be part of one starry firmament. When it is 
cloudy, and through a break the moon appears, you 
see above the dark mass of the city, above the inky 
blots which mark the woods and gardens, the glitter- 
ing rows of domes surmounting the imperial mosques, 


shining in the moonlight like great marble tombs, 


202 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


and suggesting the idea of a necropolis of giants. 
But most impressive of all is the view when there 
is neither moon nor star nor any light at all. Then 
one immense black shadow stretches from Se- 
raglio Point to Eytb, a great dark profile, the hills 
looking like mountains and their many pointed sum- 
mits assuming all manner of fantastic shapes—forests 
so that 





and armies, ruined castles, rocky fortresses 
one’s imagination travels off into the region of 
dreams and fairy tales. Gazing across at Stambul 
on some such night as this from a lofty terrace in 
Pera, one’s brain plays all sorts of mad pranks. In 
fancy you are carried into the great shadowy city ; 
wander through those myriad harems, illuminated 
by soft, subdued lights: behold the triumphant 
beauty of the favorite, the dull despair of the ne- 
elected wife; watch the eunuch who hangs trem- 
bling and impotent outside the door; follow a pair 
of lovers as they thread some steep winding byway ; 
wander through the deserted galleries of the Grand 
Bazar; traverse the great silent cemeteries; lose 
yourself amid the interminable rows of columns in 
the subterranean cisterns; imagine that you have 
been shut up in the gigantic mosque of Suleiman, 
and make its shadowy corridors echo again with 
lamentations and shricks of terror, tearing your hair 
and invoking the mercy of the Almighty; and then 
suddenly exclaim, ‘‘ What utter nonsense! I am 


here on my friend Santoro’s terrace, and in the room 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 203 


below there not only awaits me a supper for a syb- 
arite, but a gathering of the most amusing wits in 


Pera to help me eat it.” 


CONSTANTINOPLE LIFE. 


Every evening a large number of Italians gathered 
at the house of my good friend Santoro 





lawyers, 
artists, doctors, and merchants—among whom I 
passed many a delightful hour. How the conversa- 
tion flowed! Had I only understood stenography, I 
might easily have collected the materials for a de- 
lightful book out of the various anecdotes and bits 
of gossip told there night after night. The doctor, 
who had just been called to a patient in the harem ; 
the painter, who was employed upon a pasha’s por- 
trait somewhere on the Bosphorus; the lawyer, who 
was arguing a case before a tribunal; the high 
official, who had knotted the threads of an inter- 
national love-affair,—each separate experience as 
they related it formed a complete and highly enter- 
taining sketch illustrative of Oriental manners and 
customs. Each fresh arrival is the signal for some- 
thing new. ‘Have you heard the news?” one ex- 
claims on entering: ‘the government has just paid 
the employés’ salaries, due for over three months, 
and Galata is flooded with copper money.” Then 
another arrives: ‘‘ What do you suppose happened 
this morning? The Sultan got mad at the minister 


of finance and threw an inkstand at his head!” <A 


204 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


third tells a story of a Turkish president of a tribu- 
nal. Provoked, it seems, by the wretched argu- 
ments employed by an unscrupulous French lawyer 
in defending a bad cause, he paid him this pretty 
compliment before the entire audience: ‘ My dear 
advocate, it is really quite useless for you to take so 
much pains to try to make your case appear good. 
——;” And here he pronounced Cambronne’s word 
in full: ‘no matter how you may turn and twist it, 
it is still 


The conversation naturally covered geographical 





,” and he said it again. 


ground quite new tome. They used the same easy 
familiarity in talking of persons and events in Tiflis, 
Trebizond, Teheran, and Damascus as we do when 
it is a question of Paris, Vienna, or Geneva, in any 
one of which places they had friends or had lately 
been or were about going themselves. I seemed to 
be in the centre of another world, with new hori- 
zons opening out on all sides, and it was difficult to 
avoid a sinking feeling at the thought of the time 
when I would be obliged to take up once more the 
narrow and contracted routine of my ordinary life. 
“How will it ever be possible,” I would ask my- 
self, ‘to settle down again to those commonplace oc- 
cupations and threadbare topics ?” This is the way 
every one feels who has spent any time in Constan- 
tinople. After leading the life of that place, all 
others must necessarily appear flat and_ colorless. 


Existence there is easier, gayer, more youthful 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 205 


than in any other city in Europe; it is as though 
one were encamped upon foreign soil, surrounded 
by an endless succession of strange and unexpect- 
ed sights, an ever-changing, shifting scene which 
leaves upon one’s mind such a sense of the instabil- 
ity and uncertainty of all things human that you end 
by adopting something of the fatalistic creed of the 
Mussulman or else the reckless indifference of the 
adventurer. 

The apathy of that people is something incredible ; 
they live, as a poet has said, in a sort of intimate 
familiarity with death, looking upon life as a pil- 
grimage too short to attempt, even were it worth 
their while anyhow, great undertakings requiring 
long and sustained effort; and sooner or later this 
fatalism attacks the European as well, inducing him 
to live ina certain sense from day to day, without 
troubling himself more than necessary about the 
future, and playing in the world, so far as lies in his 
power, the simple and reposeful part of a spectator. 
Then the constant intercourse with so many nation- 
alities, whose language you must speak and whose 
views to a certain extent you must adopt, does away 
with many of those fixed rules and conventional- 
ities which have in our countries become iron-bound 
laws governing society, and whose observance or 
non-observance causes endless vexations and heart- 
burnings. 


The Mussulman population forms of itself a never- 


206 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


ending source of interest and curiosity, always at 
hand to be seen and studied, and so stimulating and 
enlivening to the imagination as to drive away all 
thought of ennui. The very plan of Constantinople 
helps to this end. Where in other cities the eye and 
mind are almost always imprisoned, as it were, in 
one street or narrow circuit, there every step pre- 
sents a new outlet through which both may roam 
over immeasurable distances of space and scenes of 
entrancing beauty, and, finally, there is the abso- 
lute freedom of that life, governed by no one set of 
customs. One can do absolutely as he pleases ; 
nothing is looked upon as out of the way, and the 
most astounding performances hardly cause a ripple 
of talk, forgotten almost as soon as told in that huge 
moral anarchy. Europeans live there in a sort of 
republican confederacy, enjoying a freedom from all 
restraint such as would only be possible in one of 
their own cities during some period of disorder. It is 
like a continual Carnival, a perpetual Shrove Tues- 
day, and it is this, even more than her beauty, 
which endears Constantinople so greatly to the 
foreigner, so that, thinking of her after long ab- 
senee, one experiences a fecling almost amounting 
to home-sickness; while those Europeans who have 
made their homes there strike down deep roots and 
become as devotedly attached to her as her legiti- 
mate sons. The Turks are certainly not far wrong 


when they call her “the enchantress of a thousand 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 207 


lovers,” 


or say in their proverb that for him who has 
once drunk of the waters of Top-Khaneh there is no 


cure—he is infatuated for life. 


THE ITALIANS. 

The Italian colony at Constantinople, while it is 
one of the most numerous, is far from being the most 
prosperous there. It numbers among it but few rich 
persons, and many who are wretchedly poor, espe- 
cially those who come from Southern Italy and are 
unable to find work: it is also the colony most poorly 
represented by the press, when indeed it is repre- 
sented at all, its newspapers only making their ap- 
pearance to promptly vanish again. When I was 
there the colony was awaiting the issue of the Le- 
vantino, and meanwhile a sample copy was put in 
circulation setting forth the academic titles and per- 
sonal gifts of the editor: I made out seventy-seven 
in all, without counting modesty. 

One should walk down the Rue de Pera of a Sun- 
day morning, when the Italian families are on their 
way to mass: you hear every dialect in Italy. Some- 
times I used to enjoy it, but not always: it was too 
depressing to see so many of one’s fellow-country- 
men homeless wanderers on the face of the earth; 
inany of them, too, must have been cast up on those 
shores by storms of misfortune and strange, uncom- 
fortable adventures. And then the old people who 


would never see Italy again; the children in whose 


208 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


ears that name meant nothing more than a place— 
dear, no doubt, but distant and unknown ; and those 
young girls, many of whom must inevitably marry 
men of other nationalities and found families in 
which nothing Italian will survive beyond a proper 
name or two and the fond memories of the mother. 
I encountered pretty Genoese, looking as though 
they might just have come down from the gardens 
of Acquasola; charming Neapolitan faces; graceful 
little heads which I seemed to have seen a hundred 
times beneath the porticoes of Po or the Milanese 
arcades. I felt like gathering them all into a bunch, 
tying them together with rose-colored ribbons, and 
marching them two by two on shipboard, convey- 
ing them back to Italy at the rate of fifteen knots 
an hour. I would also have liked to take back 
with me, as a curiosity, a sample of the language 
spoken by those born in the Italian colony, especially 
those of the third or fourth generation. A Crusca 
academician, on hearing it, would have taken to his 
bed with a raging fever. A language formed by 
mingling the Italian spoken by a Piedmontese door- 
keeper, a Lombardy hack-driver, and a Romagnol 
porter would, I think, be less outrageous than that 
spoken on the banks of the Golden Horn. It is 
Italian which, impure at the outset, has been mixed 
with four or five other languages, each impure in 
their turn; and the most singular part of it is that 


in the midst of all these barbarisms you suddenly 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 209 


come plump upon some such scholarly word or 
phrase as puote, imperocche, a ogni pie sospiuto, havvi, 
puossi, witnesses to the efforts made by some of our 
worthy compatriots, who by dipping into anthologies 
seek to preserve the celestial Tuscan speech. But, 
as compared with the rest, these might well lay 
claim, as Cesari said, to a reputation for using choice 
language. Some of them can hardly be understood 
at all. One day I was being escorted, I don’t re- 
member just where, by an Italian youth of sixteen 
or seventeen, a friend of a friend of mine, who was 
born in Pera. As we walked along I began asking 
him some questions, but soon found that he did not 
want to talk; he answered me in a low tone and as 
shortly as possible, growing red in the face as he did 
so and hanging his head; he was so evidently un- 
happy that I presently asked him what it was that 
troubled him so much. ‘“ Oh,” said he with a de- 
spairing sigh, ‘‘I talk so badly!” As we continued 
our conversation I found that he spoke indeed a 
strange dialect, full of outlandish words and strongly 
resembling the so-called Frank language, which, as 
a French wit once said, consists in pouring out as 
rapidly as possible a quantity of Italian, French, 
Spanish, and Greek nouns and tenses until you hap- 
pen to strike one the listener understands. It is, 
however, seldom necessary to go to so much trou- 
ble in Pera or Galata, where almost every one, in- 
cluding the Turks, can speak, or at least understand, 
Vou. I.—l14 


210 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


some Italian, though this language, if you can call it 
a language, is almost exclusively a spoken one, if 
you can call it speaking. The tongue generally 
employed for writing is French. Of Italian litera- 
ture there is none. I recollect on one solitary occa- 
sion, in a Galata café crowded with merchants, find- 
ing at the foot of the commercial intelligence and 
quotations of the Bourse, printed in French and 
Italian, eight mournful little verses all about zephyrs 
and stars and sighs. Unhappy poet! it seemed as 
though I could see you before me, buried beneath 
huge piles of merchandise, composing those verses 
with your last breath. 


THE THEATRES. 


Any one who is blessed with a pretty strong 
stomach can pass his evenings while at Constanti- 
nople at the play: he may, moreover, choose among 
quite a number of almost equally wretched little 
theatres of various sorts, many of which are beer- 
gardens and wine-shops as well. At some one of 
these one can always find the Italian comedy, or 
rather a troupe of Italian actors, whose efforts fre- 
quently make one wish the whole arena could be 
converted into a vegetable market. The Turks, 
however, frequent by preference those theatres in 
which certain bare-necked, brazen-faced, painted 
Irench women sing light songs to the accompani- 


ment of a wretched orchestra. One of these thea- 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 211 


tres was the Alhambra, situated in the Grande Rue 
de Pera: it consisted of a long apartment, always 
crowded to the utmost, and red with fezzes from 
stage to entrance. The nature of those songs, and 
the bold gestures which those intrepid ladies em- 
ployed in order to make their meaning perfectly 
clear, no one could either imagine or credit unless 
indeed he had been to the Capellanes at Madrid. At 
anything especially coarse or impudent all those 
great fat Turks, seated in long lines, broke into loud 
roars of laughter, and then the habitual mask of 
dignity and reserve would drop from their faces, ex- 
posing the depths of their real nature and every 
secret of their grossly sensual lives. There is noth- 
ing that the Turk conceals so habitually and _ effect- 
ually as the sensual nature of his tastes and manner 
of life. He never appears in public accompanied 
by a woman, rarely looks at, and never speaks to, 
one, and considers it almost an insult to be inquired 
of concerning his wives. Judging merely by outside 
appearances, one would take this to be the most aus- 
tere and straitlaced people in the world, but it is 
only in appearance. The same Turk who colors to 
the tips of his ears if one so much as asks if his 
wife is well, sends his boys, and his girls too, to 
listen to the coarse jests of Mara-gyuz, corrupting 
their minds before their senses are fairly awakened, 
while he himself is fully capable of abandoning the 


peaceful enjoyments of his own harem for such ex- 


212 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


cesses as Bayezid the Thunderbolt set the first ex- 
ample of, and Mahmid the Reformer was doubtless 
not the last to follow. And, indeed, were proof 
needed of the profound corruption which lurks be- 
neath this mask of seeming austerity, one need go 
no farther than to that selfsame Kara-gyuz. Itisa 
grotesque caricature of a middle-class Turk, a sort 
of ombra chinese, whose head, arms, and legs are 
made to accompany with appropriate gestures the 
developments of some extravagant burlesque having 
usually a love-intrigue for its plot. The marionette 
is worked behind a transparent curtain, and resem- 
bles a depraved Pulcinello, coarse, cynical, and cun- 
ning. Sensual as a satyr, foul-mouthed as a fish- 
wife, he throws his audience into paroxysms of 
laughter and enthusiasm by every sort of indecent 
jest and extravagant gesture. Before the censor- 
ship curbed to some small extent the hitherto un- 
bridled looseness of this performance, the figure was 
made to give visible proof of its corporeal resem- 
blance to Priapus, and not infrequently upon this 


lofty and elevating point the whole plot hinged. 


TuRKISH COOKING. 

Wishing to investigate for myself the Turkish 
manner of cooking, I got my good friends of Pera 
to take me to a restaurant ad hoc where every kind 
of Turkish dish is to be had, from the most delicious 


delicacies of the Seraglio to camel’s meat prepared 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 213 


as the Arabians eat it, and horseflesh dressed accord- 
ing to the Turkoman fashion. Santoro ordered the 
breakfast, severely Turrish from the opening course 
to the fruit, and I, invoking the names of all those 
intrepid spirits who have faced death in the cause 
of science, conscientiously swallowed a part of each 
without so much as a groan. There were upward 
of twenty dishes, the Turks being a good deal like 
children in their liking to peck at a quantity of dif- 
ferent kinds of food, rather than satisfy their appe- 
tite with a few solid dishes. Shepherds of the day 
before yesterday, they seem to disdain a simple table 
as though it were a trait of rustic niggardliness. I 
cannot give a clear account of each dish, many of 
them being now no more than a vague and sinister 
memory. I do, however, remember the kibab, which 
consisted of little scraps of mutton roasted on the 
coals, seasoned with a great deal of pepper and 
cloves, and served on two soft, greasy biscuits—a 
dish not to be named among the lesser sins. I can 
also recall vividly the odor of the pilav, the sine qua 
“non of a Turkish meal, consisting of rice and mutton, 
meaning to the Turk what maccaroni does to the 
Neapolitan or cuscussu to the Arab or puchero to the 





Spaniard. I have not forgotten either—and it is the 
sole pleasant memory connected with that repast—the 
rosWab, which is sipped with a spoon at the end of 
the meal: it is composed of raisins, plums, apples, 


cherries, and other fruits, cooked in water with a 


214 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


great deal of sugar, and flavored with essence of 
musk, citron, and rose-water. Then there were 
numberless other preparations of mutton and lamb, 
cut in small pieces and boiled until no flavor re- 
mained ; fish swimming in oil; rice-balls wrapped in 
grape-leaves ; ‘sugar syrups ; salads served in pastry ; 
compotes ; conserves; sauces, flavored with every 
sort of aromatic herb—a list as long as the articles 
of the penal code for relapsed criminals; and finally 
the masterpiece of some Arabian pastry-cook, a 
huge dish of sweetmeats, among which were con- 
spicuous a steamboat, a fierce-looking lion, and a 
sugar house with grated windows. When all was 
over I felt a good deal as though I had swallowed 
the contents of a pharmacist’s shop or assisted at one 
of those feasts which children prepare with pow- 
dered brickdust, chopped grass, and stale fruit—not 
unattractive-looking when seen at a distance. All 
the dishes are served rapidly, four or five at a time. 
The Turks dive into each with their fingers, the knife 
and spoon only, being in common use among them, 
and one drinking-goblet serves for the whole com- 
pany, the waiter keeping it constantly filled with 
flavored water. 

These customs, however, were not followed by the 
party who were breakfasting at the table adjoining 
ours. They were evidently Turks who valued their 
ease, even to the extent of poising their slippers 


upon the table: each had a plate to himself, and 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 215 


they plied their forks very skilfully, drinking liq- 
uors freely in despite of Mahomet. I observed, 
moreover, that they failed to kiss the bread before 
beginning to eat, as every good Mussulman should, 
and that more than one longing glance was sent in 
the direction of our bottles, although the muftis 
pronounce it a sin to so much as cast the eye upon 
a bottle of wine. There is, indeed, no doubt that 
this ‘father of abominations,” one drop of which is 
sufficient to bring down upon the head of the sin- 
ning Mussulman the ‘curses of every angel in 
heaven and earth,” gains new disciples among the 
Turks every day, and that nothing but the fear of 
public opinion prevents its open use. Were a thick 
cloud to descend upon Constantinople some day, and 
after an hour suddenly be lifted, I have little doubt 
that the sun would surprise fifty thousand Turks, 
each one in the act of lifting the bottle to his lips. 
In this, as in almost every other shortcoming of the 
Turks, it was the sultans who were the stone of 
stumbling and rock of offence. Singular to relate, 
it is that very dynasty which rules over a people 
among whom it is considered a sin in the sight of 
God to drink wine at all, which has produced more 
drunkards than any other line of rulers in Europe ; 
so sweet is forbidden fruit even in the estimation of 
the “shadow of God upon earth.” It was, we are 
told, Bayezid I. who headed the long list of imperial 


tipplers, and here, as in the case of the first sin, 


216 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


woman was the temptress, the wife of this Bayezid, 
a daughter of the king of Servia, offering her hus- 
band his first glass of Tokay. Next Bayezid II. 
got intoxicated on Cypress and Schiraz wines ; then 
the selfsame Suleiman I. who fired every ship in the 
port of Constantinople that was laden with wine, and 
poured molten lead down the throats of those who 
drank the forbidden liquor, himself died when drunk, 
shot by one of his own archers. Then comes Selim 
II., surnamed the messth (sot), whose debauches 
lasted three days, and during whose reign men of 
the law and men of religion drank openly. In vain 
did Muhammad III. thunder against this ‘‘ abomina- 


? in vain did Ahmed I. close 


tion devised by Satan ;’ 
all the taverns and destroy every wine-press in 
Stambul; in vain did Murad IV. patrol the city ac- 
companied by an executioner, who beheaded in his 
presence every unfortunate whose breath witnessed 
against him, while he himself, ferocious hypocrite 
that he was, staggered about the apartments of the 
seraglio like any common frequenter of the pothouse. 
Since his day the bottle, like some gay little black 
imp, has crept into the seraglio, lurks in the bazar, 
hides beneath the pillow of the soldier, thrusts its 
little silver or purple neck from beneath the divan 
of the beauty, and, crossing the threshold of the very 
mosques themselves, has stained the yellow pages of 


the Koran with sacrilegious drops. 


. 


tis 
! 




























216 _ SFE IS CONSTANTINOPLE, - 


woman vad the taempteess, the Witt ok eel 
a dusighter ofthe king ‘of Sore eee 
band ide frat glans of Tokaye “Next E 
yot intetentid-ony ‘Cypress, and Séhiraz w 
the collsess Suleiman Be Se 
port of (stsintinople that was laden sth wi 
powered molten lead down the throats of ‘the 
dvank the forbidden. liquer; himself died wi 
shor be one of his own archers. ‘Then ° 
'k, surnamed’ ‘the smeseth (sot), 
\eslud three days, and: during whose. n 
vic bow and_men of religion drank ep xs 
“did Muhammad PE. thander greece: 
item devised by Satan;” in vain did A 
Jt the taverns and destroy” every 
Stembubs in vain did Murad Fr se patrol the i 
ape hy an executioner, who belie + 
wesettee every unfortunate whose een 
inst lim, while he himself, ferociously 
out be was, staggered: about the 
‘acto like auy‘tommon frequenter of they 
~» his day the bottle, like ‘some gay Little Bil 
ov hae erept into the seraglioplurks im the | val 
> beneath thé pillow of the soldier, £ 
var or purple neck from benewtiet 
Ta utity, vanl, crossing the-threshold of tha ve 
h of Sultan Sel aid yy! he St. Soph od “ 
in with ancrilegions drops, an 


re 


7 

2 ‘ 
“An 

- 


ot 


| 
jj 
: 


wes 
SS 





. 


—— 





LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. DAT 


MOonuAMMED. 

Speaking of religion, while wandering about the 
streets and byways of Constantinople I used often to 
wonder whether, were it not for the voice of the 
muezzin, Christians would see anything to remind 
them that there was any difference between the re- 
ligion of this people and their own. The Byzantine 
architecture of the mosques makes them seem very 
like churches; of the Islam rites there is no exter- 
nal evidence ; while Turkish soldiers may be seen 
escorting the viaticum through the streets. An un- 
educated Christian might remain a year in Constan- 
tinople without being aware that Mohammed, not 
Christ, claimed the allegiance of the greater part of 
the population; and this led me on to reflect upon 
the slight nature of the fundamental difference—the 
blade of grass, as the Abyssinian Christians called it in 
speaking to the first followers of Mohammed—which 
divides the two religions, and the trifling cause which 
led Arabia to adopt Islamism instead of Christianity, 
or, if not Christianity, at all events something so 
closely resembling it that, even had it never devel- 
oped into that outright, it would have seriously: 
altered the destinies of the entire Eastern world. 
This slight cause was nothing more or less than 
the voluptuous nature of a certain handsome young 
Arabian, tall, fair, ardent, with black eyes and mu- 
sical voice—he lacked the force to dominate his own 


218 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


passions, and so, instead of cutting at the root of his 
people’s prevailing sin, he contented himself with 
pruning the branches, and in lieu of proclaiming 
conjugal unity as he proclaimed the unity of God, 
merely confined within somewhat narrower bounds, 
and then proceeded to give the countenance of re- 
ligion to, the dissolute selfishness of men. No doubt 
he would have had to encounter a more determined 
opposition in the one case than in the other, but that 
it was in his power to succeed who can question 
when it is remembered that in order to establish the 
worship of one sole God among a people given over 
to idolatry he was obliged to first overthrow an enor- 
mous superstructure of tradition and superstition, in- 
cluding innumerable grants and privileges all closely 
interlaced, the result of centuries of growth, and that 
he made them accept, as one of the dogmas of his 
religion for which millions of believers subsequently 
died, a paradise which at its first announcement 
aroused a universal feeling of scorn and indignation ? 
Unfortunately, however, this handsome young Arab 
temporized with his passions, and as a consequence 
the face of half the globe is changed, since polygamy 
was, without doubt, the besetting vice of his rule 
and the principal cause of the decadence of all those 
races who have adopted his religion. It is the deg- 
radation of one sex for the benefit of the other, 
the open sanction of a glaring injustice which dis- 


turbs the entire course of human rights, corrupts the 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 219 


rich, oppresses the poor, encourages ignorance, 
breaks up the family, and by causing endless com- 
plications in the rights of birth among the reign- 
ing dynasties overturns kingdoms and states, finally 
placing an insuperable barrier in the way of the union 
of Mussulman society with the people of other faiths 
who populate the Kast. If, to return to the original 
proposition, ‘that handsome young Arab had only 
been endowed with a little more strength of charac- 
ter, had the spiritual in his nature but outweighed, 
by ever so small an amount, the animal, who knows ? 
—perhaps we would now have an Orient orderly, 
well-governed, and the world be a century nearer 


universal civilization. 


RAMAZAN. 


Happening to be in Constantinople in the month 
of Ramazan, the ninth month in the Turkish calendar, 
in which the twenty-eight days’ fast falls, I was able 
to enjoy every evening a spectacle so exceedingly 
comical that I think it merits a description. 
Throughout the entire fast the Turks are forbidden 
to eat, drink, or smoke from sunrise to sunset. Most 
of them make it up by feasting all night, but as long 
as the sun is shining the rule is very generally ob- 
served, and no one dares, in public at any rate, to 
transgress it. 

One morning my friend and I went to call upon a 
friend of ours, a young aide-de-camp of the Sultan, 


220 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


who prided himself upon his liberal views. We 
found him in one of the rooms on the ground floor 
of the imperial palace with a cup of coffee in his 
hand. ‘ Why,” said Yunk, “how do you dare to 
drink coffee hours after sunrise?” The young man 
shrugged his shoulders, and remarked carelessly 
that he did not care a fig for Ramazan or the fast ; 
but just at that moment, a door near by suddenly 
opening, he was in such a hurry to hide the telltale 
cup that half its contents were spilled at his fect. 
One can readily imagine from this incident how 
rigorously all those must abstain whose entire day 
is passed beneath the public eye, the boatmen for in- 
stance. To get a really good idea of it one should 
stand on the Sultan Validéh bridge at about sunset. 
What with the boats at the landings and those which 
are going from one place to another, the ones near 
at hand and those in the distance, there must be 
very nearly a thousand in sight. Every boatman 
has fasted since sunrise, and by this time is raven- 
ously hungry. His supper is all ready in the kaik, 
and his eyes travel constantly from it to where the 
sun is nearing the horizon, and then back again, 
while he has the restless, uneasy air of a wild ani- 
mal who paces about his cage as the feeding-hour 
approaches. Sunset is announced by the firing of a 
gun, and until that signal is heard not so much as 
a crumb of bread or drop of water crosses the lips 


of one of them. Sometimes in a retired spot 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 291 


in the Golden Horn we would try to induce our 
boatman to eat something, but the invariable answer 
was, “Jok! jok! jok!” (No! no! no!), accompanied 
by an uneasy gesture toward the western horizon. 
When the sun gets about halfway down behind the 
mountains the men begin to finger their pieces of 
bread, inhaling its smell voluptuously. Then it gets 
so low that nothing can be seen but a golden are, 
and the rowers lay down their oars. Those who are 
busy and those who are idle, some midway across 
the Golden Horn, some lying in retired inlets, others 
on the Bosphorus, others over near the Asiatic 
shore, others, again, who are plying on the Sea of 
Marmora, one and all, turning toward the west, re- 
main immovable, their eyes fixed on the fast-disap- 
pearing disk with mouth open, kindling eye, and 
bread firmly clasped in the right hand. Now noth- 
ing can be seen but a tiny point of fire: a thousand 
hunks of bread are held close to a thousand mouths, 
and then the fiery eye drops out of sight, the can- 
nons thunders, and on the instant thirty-two thou- 
sand teeth tear a thousand huge mouthsful from a 
thousand loaves! But why say a thousand, when in 
every house and café and restaurant a similar scene 
is being enacted at precisely the same moment, and 
for a short time the Turkish city is nothing but a 
huge monster whose hundred thousand jaws are all 


tearing and devouring at once? 


222 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


ANCIENT CONSTANTINOPLE. 


But think what this city must have been in the 
great days of the Ottoman glory! I kept thinking 
of that all the time. How it must have looked when 
not a single cloud of smoke arose from the Bos- 
phorus, all white with sails, to make ugly, black 
marks against the blue of sky and water! In the 
port and the inlets of the Sea of Marmora, among the 
picturesque battle-ships of that period with their 
lofty carved prows, silver crescents, violet standards, 
and gilded lanterns, floated the battered and blood- 
stained hulks of Spanish, Genoese, and Venetian 
galleys. No bridges spanned the Golden Horn, 
which was covered with myriads of gayly-decorated 
boats plying constantly from one shore to the other, 
among which could be distinguished afar off the 
snowy-white launches of the Seraglio, covered with 
gold-fringed scarlet hangings and propelled by 
rowers dressed in silk. Skutari was then no more 
than a village: seen from Galata, she only appeared 
to have a few houses scattered about on the hillside ; 
no lofty palaces as yet reared their heads above the 
hilltops of Pera; the appearance of the city was 
doubtless less impressive than now, but far more 
Oriental in character: the law prescribing the use 
of colors being then in full force, one could deter- 
mine accurately the religion of the occupant from 


the color of each house. Except for its public and 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 223 


sacred edifices, which were white as snow, Stambul 
was entirely red and yellow; the Armenian quarters 
were light, and the Greek quarters dark gray; the 
Hebrew quarter, purple. As in Holland, the passion 
for flowers was universal, so that the gardens were 
like huge bouquets of hyacinths, tulips, and roses. 
The exuberant vegetation not having been as yet 
checked on the surrounding hillsides by the growth 
of new suburbs, Constantinople presented the ap- 
pearance of a city built in a forest. The public 
thoroughfares were nothing but lanes and alleys, but 
they were rendered picturesque by the varied and 
brilliant crowds which thronged them. The huge 
turbans worn by the men lent them all an air of 
dignity and importance. The women, with the single 
exception of the Sultan’s mother, were so rigorously 
veiled as to show nothing but the eyes, and so formed 
a population apart, anonymous, enigmatical, which 
lent to the entire city a certain air of secresy and 
mystery. Severe laws controlled the dress of every 
individual, so that from the shape of his turban or 
color of his caftan one could tell the precise rank, 
occupation, office, or condition of every one he met, 
as though the city had been one great court. The 
horse being as yet almost ‘man’s only coach,” 
thousands of cavaliers filled the crowded streets, 
while long files of camels and dromedaries belonging 
to the army traversed the city in all directions, giv- 


ing it something of the savage and imposing air of 


224 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


an ancient Asiatic metropolis. Gilded arabas, drawn 
by oxen, passed carriages hung with the green 
cloth of the wlemz or scarlet cloth of the kédi-aschieri, 
and light talike hung with satin and fantastically 
painted. Troops of slaves marched along, repre- 
senting every country from Polonia to Ethiopia, 
clanking the chains riveted on them in the field of 
battle. On the street-corners, in the squares and the 
courtyards of the mosques, groups of soldiers col- 
lected, clad in glorious rags, displaying their bat- 
tered arms and scars still fresh from wounds re- 
ceived at Vienna, Belgrade, Rodi, and Damascus. 
Hundreds of orators recounted to rapt and enthusi- 
astic audiences the heroic deeds and brilliant vic- 
tories achieved by the army fighting at a distance 
of three months’ march from Stambul. Pasha, bey, 
agha, musselim, numberless dignitaries and person- 
ages of high rank, clad with theatrical display and 
accompanied by throngs of attendants, made their 
way through the crowds, who bowed before them 
like grain before the wind. Ambassadors represent- 
ing every court in Europe, accompanied by princely 
retinues, who had come to Stambul to sue for peace 
or arrange an alliance, swept by. Caravans laden 
with propitiatory gifts from Asiatie and African 
kings filed slowly along the principal thoroughfares. 
Companies of silidars and spahis, haughty and inso- 
lent, swaggered by, their sabres stained with the 


blood of twenty different nations, while the hand- 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 225 


some Greek and Hungarian Seraglio pages, dressed 
like little kings, pushed haughtily through the ob- 
sequious multitude, who, recognizing in them the 
unnatural caprices of their lord, respected them ac- 
cordingly. Here and there a trophy of knotted 
clubs before some doorway indicated the presence 
of a corps of Janissaries, who at that time acted 
as police in the interior of the city. Parties of 
Hebrews would be seen hurrying to the Bosphorus 
with the dead bodies of the victims of justice. 
Every morning a body would be found in the Baluk 
Bazar, lying with the head under the right armpit, 
a stone holding in place the sentence affixed to the 
breast. Law-breakers to whom summary justice 
had been meted out would dangle from a beam or 
hook in the public highway, while after nightfall one 
was liable to stumble over the body of some unfor- 
tunate who, after having his hands and feet pounded 
with clubs, had been thrown from the window of the 
torture-chamber. In the broad light of day mer- 
chants, caught in the act of cheating, would be 
nailed through the ear to their own shop-doors, and, 
there being no law controlling the free right of sep- 
ulture, the work of digging graves and burying the 
dead was carried on at all hours and in all places— 
in the gardens, in the lanes and open squares, and 
before the doors of dwellings. The eries of lambs 
and sheep could be heard from the courtyards where 
they were being slaughtered in sacrifice to Allah on 
Vox. I.—15 


226 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


the occasion of a circumcision or a birth. From 
time to time a troop of eunuchs, galloping by with 
warning cries, would be the signal for a general 
stampede; the streets would become deserted ; doors 
and windows fly to, blinds be drawn down, and an 
entire neighborhood suddenly assume the look and 
air of a city of the dead. ‘Then in long procession 
files of gorgeously-decorated coaches filled with the 
ladies of the imperial harem would pass by, scatter- 
ing around them an atmosphere of perfume and 
laughter. Sometimes it would happen that an of- 
ficial of the court, making his way through some 
thoroughfare, would suddenly encounter six quite 
ordinary-looking individuals about to enter a shop, 
and at that sight grow unaccountably pale. These 
six, however, would be the Sultan, four officers of 
his court, and an executioner making their rounds 
from shop to shop in order to verify the weights and 
measures. | 
Throughout the whole of the city’s huge body 
there coursed an exuberant and feverish life; the 
treasury overflowed with jewels, the arsenal with 
arms, the barracks with soldiers, the caravanseries 
with strangers; the slave-market was thronged with 
merchants and lofty personages come to inspect the 
crowds of beautiful slaves. Scholars pressed to ex- 
amine the archives of the great mosques; long- 
winded viziers prepared for the delectation of future 


generations the interminable annals of the Empire ; 




























“TIF ts cossrtniNortE. | 2 


gl “agen by the Seraglio, PO 4 a the 
b they sang the imperial loves and wates |: 
n of Balgarian und Armenian workmen. toiled , 
fection. of tnighity mosques, employing huge 
ue enor ail’ Peron: uae while. by: soa, 
irom the teuples of the Archipelago, anc 
Tend Bf apoils fom the churches of Peth at Oy. 
‘to contribute to their splendor, Ta: 
Fa fleot of three bimdred sail mato ready 
and dismay to every coast in the 
{ between Stambrl and Adrianapolig 
oF Mfilcthers and gateckcepers, to the 
pot seven thousand, were stationed; and in 
3 between military uprisings at-Tiome,. 
Wars, psa eonflagrations which would redute 
Stwenty thonaand howses ty ashes in a single night, 
* Pevels 2 aaa eas, lasting thirty days, in 
ler mives of every court in Avia, 
op ne ‘eu oetaxions the glori- 
| Mifsilinane’ degenerated into fully: 
atties were fought ‘by the Jamiseatias 71) the 
eof the Sultan and the court, «mid lage 
 paline di rrozec. Jadesi with birds! mirrors, nl truite 
ris bisa, in order to make room ‘for whieh 
“walls anil houses: wore ruthlessly destroyed; avd prs ie 
“eessidas, of lions’ aad stgar mermaids, borne , on 
= heirwex, “Interior of Mosque of Ribvida damask, unc! 
Seountains of royal gifts sent from every part of | 
Be pire aud eyery court in the world; dery ihe 


i 
1 









_ 
“~ 
404 





Vs Yo 


x 
by 
é 
‘ 
‘ 
4 
7 oi 
i~> * 





¥ ; . 
huts P 
‘ A) ) -% 
> - * 
, we 
+) 
is : P ‘ 
| ; 
t — 
} 
t > 
j : 
= 4 - 
_ 7 4 | —oo 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 227 


poets, pensioned by the Seraglio, assembled in the 
baths, where they sang the imperial loves and wars ; 
swarms of Bulgarian and Armenian workmen. toiled 
at the erection of mighty mosques, employing huge 
blocks of granite and Paros marble, while by sea, 
columns from the temples of the Archipelago, and 
by land, spoils from the churches of Pesth and Ofen, 
were brought to contribute to their splendor. In 
the harbor a fleet of three hundred sail made ready 
to carry terror and dismay to every coast in the 
Mediterranean ; between Stambul and Adrianapolis 
companies of falconers and gamekeepers, to the 
number of seven thousand, were stationed; and in 
the intervals between military uprisings at home, 
foreign wars, and conflagrations which would reduce 
twenty thousand houses to ashes in a single night, 
revels would be celebrated, lasting thirty days, in 
honor of the representatives of every court in Asia, 
Africa, and Europe. On these occasions the glori- 
fications of the Mussulmans degenerated into folly : 
sham battles were fought by the Janissaries in the 
presence of the Sultan and the court, amid huge 
palme di nozze laden with birds, mirrors, and fruits 
of various kinds, in order to make room for which 
walls and houses were ruthlessly destroyed; and pro- 
cessions of lions and sugar mermaids, borne on 
horses whose trappings were of silver damask, and 
mountains of royal gifts sent from every part of the 


Empire and every court in the world; dervishes 


228 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


executed their furious dances, and bloody massacres 
of Christian prisoners were followed by public ban- 
quets where ten thousand dishes of cuscusst& were 
served to the populace ; trained elephants and giraffes 
danced in the Hippodrome, while bears and wolves, 
with fireworks tied to their tails, were let loose 
among the people; allegorical pantomimes, gro- 
tesque masquerades, wanton dances, fantastic proces- 
sions, games, comedies, symbolic cars, rustic dances, 
followed each other in rapid succession. Little by 
little as night descended the festival degenerated 
into a mad orgy, and then the lights from five hun- 
dred brilliantly illuminated mosques spread a great 
aureole of fire over the entire city and announced to 
the watching shepherds on the mountain-heights of 
Asia and the wayfarers on the Propontis the revels 
of this new Babylon. 

Such was once Stambul, a haughty sultaness, 
voluptuous, formidable, wanton, as compared with 
which the city of to-day is little more than some 


weary old queen, peevish and hypochondriacal. 


Tue ARMENIANS. 

Absorbed as I was by the Turks, I had, as may 
be readily understood, but little time left in which 
to study the characteristics of the three other na- 
tionalities—Armenian, Greek, and Hebrew—which 
vo to make up the population of Constantinople—a 


study requiring a certain amount of time, too, since 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 229 


all of these people, while preserving to a certain ex- 
tent their national character, have outwardly con- 
formed to the prevailing Mussulman coloring around 
them, now in its turn fading into a uniform tint of 
European civilization. Thus it is as difficult to catch 
a vivid impression of any one of the three as it would 
be of a view that was constantly changing. This is 
true ina special sense of the Armenians, ‘ Christians 
in spirit and faith, Asiatic Mussulmans by birth and 
carnal nature,” whom it is not only hard to study in- 
timately, but even to distinguish at sight, since those 
among them who have not adopted the European 
costume dress like Turks in all except some very mi- 
nor points. All of them have abandoned the ancient 
felt cap which was formerly, with certain special 
colors, the distinctive sign of their nation. In ap- 
pearance they closely resemble the Turks, being for 
the most part tall, robust, and corpulent, with a grave, 
sedate carriage, but their complexion is light, and 
the two striking points of their national character 
can usually be read in their faces—the one, a quick, 
open, industrious, and persevering spirit, which fits 
them in a peculiar way to commercial enterprises ; 
and the other that adaptability, called by some ser- 
vility, which enables them to gain a foothold among 
whatever people they may be thrown with from 
Hungary to China, and renders them particularly 
acceptable to the Turks, whose confidence they 
readily succeed in winning, making them faithful 


230 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


subjects and obsequious friends. There is nothing 
heroic or bellicose either about their appearance or 
disposition: formerly this may have been otherwise. 
Those parts of Asia whence they came are at present 
inhabited by a people, descendants of a common 
stock, who, it is said, resemble them but little. 
Certainly those members of the race who have been 
transplanted to the shores of the Bosphorus are a 
prudent and managing people, moderate in their 
manner of life, intent only upon their trade, and 
more sincerely religious, it is affirmed, than any 
other nation which inhabits Constantinople. They 
are called by the Turks the “camels of the Em- 
pire,” and the Franks assert that every Armenian 
is born an accountant. These two sayings are, to 
a great extent justified by the facts, since, thanks 
to their great physical strength and their quickness 
and intelligence, they furnish, in addition to a large 
proportion of her architects, engineers, doctors, and 
clever and painstaking mechanics, the greater part 
of Constantinople’s bankers and porters, the former 
amassing fabulous fortunes, and the latter carrying 
enormous loads. At first sight, though, one would 
hardly be aware that there was an Armenian popu- 
lation in Constantinople, so completely has the plant, 
so to speak, assumed the color of the soil. Their 
women, on whose account the house of the Armenian 
is almost as rigorously closed to strangers as that of 


the Mussulman, have likewise adopted the Turkish 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 231 


dress, and none but the most expert eye could dis- 
tinguish them among their Mohammedan neighbors. 
They are generally fair and stout, with the aquiline 
Oriental profile, large eyes and long lashes; many 
of them are tall, with matronly figures, and, sur- 
mounted by turbans, might well be mistaken for 
handsome sheiks. They are universally modest and 
dignified in their bearing, and if anything is lacking 
it is the intelligence which beams from the eyes of 


their Greek sisters. 


THE GREEKS. 


Difficult as it may be to single out the Armenian 
at sight, there is no such trouble about the Greek, 
who differs so essentially in character, bearing, ap- 
pearance, everything, from all the other subjects of 
the Empire that he can be told at once without 
even looking at his dress. To appreciate this di- 
versity, or rather contrast, one need only watch a 
Turk and a Greek who happen to be seated beside 
one another on board a steamboat or in a café. They 
may be about the same age and rank, both dressed 
in the European fashion, and even resemble each 
other somewhat in feature, and yet it is quite impos- 
sible to mistake them. The Turk sits perfectly mo- 
tionless; his face wears a look of quietude and re- 
pose, void of all expression, like a fed animal; if by 
any chance some shadow of a thought appears, it 


seems to be a reflection as lifeless and inert as his 


232 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


body; he looks at no one, and is apparently quite 
unconscious that any one is looking at him, express- 
ing by his entire bearing an utter indifference to his 
surroundings, a something of the resigned melan- 
choly of a slave and the cold pride of a despot; 
hard, closed, completed, he seems incapable of alter- 
ing any resolution once taken, and it would drive 
any one to the verge of madness who should under- 
take the task of persuading him to any course. In 
short, he appears to be a being hewn out of a single 
block, with whom it would only be possible to live 
either as master or servant, and no amount of inter- 
course with whom would ever justify the taking of a 
liberty. With the Greek it is altogether different. 
His mobile features express every thought that 
passes through his mind, and betray a youthful, 
almost childish ardor, while he tosses his head with 
the free action of an uncurbed and restive horse. 
On finding himself observed he at once strikes an 
attitude, and if no one looks at him he tries to at- 
tract attention; he seems to be always wanting or 
imagining something, and his whole person breathes 
of shrewdness and ambition. There is something 
so attractive and sympathetic about him that you are 
inclined to give him your hand even when you would 
hesitate about trusting him with your purse. Seen 
side by side, one can readily understand how it is 
that one of these men considers the other a proud, 


overbearing, brutal savage, and is looked down upon 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. Dow 


in his turn as a light creature, untrustworthy, mis- 
chievous, and the cause of endless trouble, and how 
they mutually despise and hate one another from the 
bottom of their hearts, finding it impossible to live 
together in peace. And so with the women. It is 
with a distinct feeling of gratification and pleasure 
that one first encounters amid the handsome, florid 
Turkish and Armenian types, appealing more to the 
senses than the mind, the pure and exquisite features 
of the Greek women, illuminated by those deep 
serious eyes whose every glance recalls an ode, 
while their exquisite shapes inspire an immediate 
desire to clasp them in one’s arms—with the object 
of placing them on pedestals, however, rather than in 
the harem. Among them can still be occasionally 
found one or two who, wearing their hair after the 
ancient fashion—that is, hanging over the shoulders 


in long wavy locks, with one thick coil wound around 





the top of the head like a diadem—are so noble-look- 
ing, so beautiful and classic, that they might well be 
taken for statues fresh from the chisel of a Praxiteles 
or a Lysippus, or for youthful immortals discovered 
after twenty centuries in some forgotten valley of 
Laconia or unknown island of the Egean. But even 
among the Greeks these examples of queenly beauty 
are exceedingly rare, and are found only in the ranks 
of the old aristocracy of the Empire, in the silent 
and melancholy quarter of Fanar, where the spirit 


of ancient Byzantium has taken refuge. There one 


234 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


may occasionally see one of these magnificent women 
leaning on the railing of a balcony or against the 
grating of some lofty window, her eyes fixed upon 
the deserted street in the attitude of an imprisoned 
queen ; and when a crowd of lackeys is not lounging 
idly before the door of one of these descendants of 
the Paleologi and the Comneni, one may, watching 
her from some place of observation, fancy that a rift 
in the clouds has revealed for an instant the face of 
an Olympian goddess. 


THE HEBREWS. 


With regard to the Hebrews I am prepared to 
assert, having been to Morocco myself, that those of 
Constantinople have nothing in common with their 
fellows of the northern coast of Africa, where ob- 
serving experts say they have discovered in all its 
primitive purity the original Oriental type of Hebrew 
beauty. In the hope of finding some traces of this 
same beauty, I summoned up all my courage and 
thoroughly explored the vast Ghetto of Balata, 
which winds like an unclean reptile along the banks 
of the Golden Horn. I penetrated into the most 
wretched purlieus, among hovels “ encrusted with 
mould” like the shores of the Dantesque pool ; 
through passageways which nothing would induce 
me to enter again except on stilts, and, holding my 
nose; [ peered through windows hung with filthy 


rags into dark, malodorous rooms; paused before 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 235 


damp courtyards exhaling a smell of mould and 
decay strong enough to take one’s breath away ; 
pushed my way through groups of scrofulous chil- 
dren; brushed up against horrible old men who 
looked as though they had died of the plague and 
come to life again; avoiding now a dog covered 
with sores, now a pool of black mud, dodging under 
rows of loathsome rags hung from greasy cords, 
or stumbling over heaps of decaying stuff whose 
smell was enough to make one faint outright. And, 
after all, my heroism met with no reward. Among 
all the many women whom I encountered wearmng 
the national kalpak—an article resembling a sort of 
elongated turban, covering the hair and ears—I saw, 
it is true, some faces in which could be discovered 
that delicate regularity of feature and the expression 
of gentle resignation which are supposed to charac- 
terize the Constantinopolitan Jewess; some vague 
profiles of a Rebecca or a Rachel, with almond- 
shaped eyes full of a soft sweetness; an occasional 
graceful, erect figure standing in Raphaclesque atti- 
tude in an open doorway, with one delicate hand 
resting lightly on the curly head of a child; but for 
the most part my investigations revealed nothing 
but discouraging evidences of the degradation of the 
race. What a contrast between those pinched faces 
and the piercing eyes, brilliant coloring, and well- 
rounded forms which aroused my admiration a year 


later in the Mella of Tangiers and Fez! 


236 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


And the men—thin, yellow, stunted, all their vi- 
tality seems centred in their bright cunning eyes, 
never still for a moment, but which roll restlessly 
about as though constantly attracted by the sound 
of chinking money. 

At this point I am quite prepared to hear my 
kind critics among the Israelites—who have already 
rapped me over the knuckles in regard to their co- 
religionists of Morocco—take up the burden of their 
song, laying all the blame of the degeneration and 
degradation of the Hebrews of Constantinople at the 
door of the Turkish oppressor. But it should be 
remembered that the other non-Mussulman subjects 
of the Porte are all on a precisely similar footing, 
both political and civil, with themselves; and, even 
were it otherwise, they would find some difficulty in 
proving that the filthy habits, early marriages, and 
complete abandonment of every sort of hard work, 
considered as primal causes of that degeneration, 
are the logical results of the loss of liberty and inde- 
pendence. And should they assert that it is not so 
much Turkish oppression as the universal scorn and 
petty persecutions which they have had to endure 
on all hands that have brought about such complete 
loss of self-respect, let them pause and first ask 
themselves if the exact opposite may not be nearer 
the truth, and the general obloquy in which they are 
held be not so much the cause as the result of their 


manner of life; and then, instead of trying to cover 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 23 


up the sore, themselves be the ones to apply the 


knife. 


THE BATH. 


After making the tour of Balata the most appro- 
priate thing to take next seems to be a Turkish 
bath. The bath-houses may be easily recognized 
from without: they are small, mosque-shaped build- 
ings, without windows, surmounted by cupolas, and 
have high conical chimneys, from which smoke is 
constantly rising. So much for the exterior, but he 
who desires to penetrate farther and explore the 
mysteries of the interior would do well to pause and 
ask himself, Quid valeant humeri? since not every 
one is able to endure the aspro governo to which he 
who enters those salutary walls must be subjected. I 
am free to confess that, after all I had been told, I 
approached them with some feeling of trepidation, 
which I think the reader will admit was not wholly 
unjustifiable before he has done. As I recall it all 
now, two great drops of perspiration stand out on 
my forehead, ready to roll down when I shall be in 
the heat of my description. Here then is what was 
done to my unhappy person. Entering timidly, I 
find myself in a large apartment which leaves one 
in doubt for a few moments as to whether he has 
gotten by mistake into a theatre or a hospital. A 
fountain plays in the centre, decorated on top with 


flowers ; a wooden gallery runs all around the walls, 


238 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


upon which some Turks, stretched upon mattresses 
and enveloped from head to foot in snow- white 
cloths, either slumber profoundly or smoke in a 
dreamy state between waking and sleeping. Look- 
ing about for some attendant, I become suddenly 
aware of two robust mulattoes, stripped to the 
waist, who appear from nowhere like spectres and 
ask in deep tones and both together, “* Hamma- 
mun ?” (bath?). ‘‘ Evvet” (yes), I reply in a very 
weak voice. Motioning me to follow, they lead the 
way up a small wooden stair to a room filled with 
mats and cushions, where I am given to understand 
that I must undress, after which they proceed to 
wrap a strip of blue and white stuff about my loins, 
tie my head up in a piece of muslin, and, placing a 
pair of huge slippers on my feet, grasp me under the 
arms like a drunken man, and conduct, or rather 
drag, me into another room, warm and half lighted, 
where, after laying me on a rug, they stand with 
arms akimbo, waiting until my skin shall have be- 
come moist. These preparations, so distressingly 
suggestive of some approaching punishment, fill me 
with a vague uneasiness, which changes into some- 
thing even less admirable when the two cutthroats, 
after touching me on the forehead, exchange a 
meaning glance, as who should say, ‘‘Suppose he 


” 


resists?” and then, as though exclaiming, ‘To the 
rack!” again seize me by the arms and lead me 


into a third room. ‘This apartment makes a very 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 239 


singular impression at first sight: it is as though 
one found himself in a subterranean temple, where, 
through clouds of vapor, high marble walls, rows of 
columns, arches, and a lofty vaulted roof, can be in- 
distinctly seen, colored green and blue and crimson 
by the rays of light falling from the cupola, white 
spectral figures slide noiselessly back and forth close 
to the walls. In the centre half-naked forms are ex- 
tended upon the pavement, while others, also half 
naked, bend over them in the attitude of doctors 
making an autopsy. The temperature is such that 
no sooner have we entered than I break out into a 
profuse perspiration, and it seems most probable 
that should I ever get out at all it will be in the form 
of a running stream like the lover of Arethusa. 

The two mulattoes convey my body to the centre 
of the room and deposit it upon a sort of anatomical 
table consisting of a raised slab of white marble, 
beneath which are the stoves. The marble, bemg 
extremely hot, burns me and I see stars, but, as long 
as I am there, there is no choice but to go through 
with the penalty. My two attendants accordingly 
begin the vivisection, and, chanting a sort of funeral 
dirge the while, pinch my arms and legs, stretch my 
muscles, make my joints crack, pound me, rub me, 
maul me, and then, rolling me over on my face, 
begin over again, only to put me on my back later 
and recommence the whole process. They knead 


and work me like a dough figure to which they want 


240 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


to give a certain form they have in mind, and, not 
succeeding, have grown angry with; a slight pause 
for breath is only followed by renewed pinching, 
pulling, and pounding, until I begin to fear that my 
last hour is drawing near; and then finally, when 
iny entire body is streaming with perspiration like a 
wet sponge, the blood coursing furiously through 
my veins, and it has become evident that I have 
reached the last limit of endurance, they gather up 
imy remains from that bed of torment and carry 
them to a corner, where in a small alcove are a 
basin and two spigots from which hot and cold water 
are running. But, alas! fresh martyrdom awaits me 
here; and really the affair at this point begins to 
assume so serious an aspect that, joking aside, I 
consider whether it would not be possible to strike 
out to right and left, and, just as I am, make a break 
for life and liberty. It is too late, though: one of 
my tormentors, putting on a camel’s-hair glove, has 
fallen to rubbing my back, breast, arms, and legs 
with the same cheerful energy a lively groom might 
employ in currying a horse; after this has been pro- 
longed for fully five minutes a stream of tepid water is 
poured down my back, and I take breath and return 
devout thanks to Heaven that it is all over at last. 
I soon find, however, that this is premature: that 
ferocious mulatto, taking the glove off, promptly 
falls to onee more with his bare hand, until, losing 


all patience, I sign to him to stop, with the result 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 241 


that, exhibiting his hand, he proves to his own en- 
tire satisfaction and my complete bewilderment that 
he must still continue, and does so. Next follows 
another deluge of water, and after that a fresh op- 
eration: each of them, now taking a piece of tow 
cloth, rubs a quantity of Candia soap upon it, and 
then proceeds to soap me well from head to foot ; 
then another torrent of perfumed water, followed by 
the tow cloths again, but, Heaven be praised! without 
soap this time, and the process is one of drying me 
off. When this has been accomplished they tie up 
my head again, wrap the cloth about my body, and 
then, enveloping me in a large sheet, reconduct me 
to the second room, where I am allowed to rest a 
few moments before being taken to the first; here a 
warm mattress is in readiness, upon which I stretch 
myself luxuriously. The two instruments of justice 
give a few final pinches to equalize the circulation 
of blood throughout all my members, and _ then, 
placing an embroidered cushion under my head, a 
white covering over me, a pipe in my mouth, and a 
glass of lemonade at my side, depart, leaving me 
light, fresh, airy, perfumed, with a mind serene, 
a contented heart, and such a sense of youth and 
vitality that I feel as though, like Venus, I had just 
been born from the foam of the sea, and seem 
to hear the wings of the loves fluttering above my 


head. 


Vox. 1.—16 


242 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


THE SERASKER TOWER. 


Feeling thus “airy and meet for intercourse with 
the stars,” one could not do better than ascend to the 
top of that stone Titan called the Serasker Tower. 
I think that should Satan again undertake to offer a 
view of the kingdoms of the world by way of a temp- 
tation, his best course would be to select this spot 
for the enterprise. The tower, built in the reign of 
Mahmiid II., is planted upon the summit of the 
most lofty hill in Stambul, on that spot in the centre 
of the vast courtyard of the War Office called by the 
Turks the wmbilicus of the city. It is constructed 
mainly of white Marmora marble, on the plan of a 
regular polygon with sixteen sides, and rears itself 
aloft, erect, and graceful as a column, overtopping to 
a considerable extent the gigantic minarets of the 
adjacent mosque of Suleiman. Ascending a winding 
stair lighted here and there by square windows, you 
catch fleeting views now of Galata, now of Stambul 
or the villages on the Golden Horn, and before you 
are halfway to the top seem already to have reached 
the region of the clouds. It may happen that a 
slight noise is heard directly over your head, and 
almost at the same instant a something flashes by, 
apparently an object of some sort being hurled head- 
long from above ; but, in reality, one of the guards sta- 
tioned day and night on the summit to watch for fires 


and give the alarm, who, having discovered at some 








Ls 7 


ny LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 245 
TAistapt point of the horizon « cloud of suspicious 





ee evi: and rattling the panes of 
glass and making the beards strain and creak, you 
“are very apt to be attacked with vertigo and to feel 
' strongly tempted to give up the view; but at sight 
“of the ladder which Teads t6 the window in the roof 
am returns, and, chmbing up with a beating 
= Reart, a. ery of astonishinctit taxapes you. Itis an - 
x ing moment, and for a little while you re- 
main silent-and transfixed. 

~ Constantinople lies doread out before 5 ron like a 
= ahap,” and withthe tura of an eye the entire extent — 
of the mighty. metropolis’ can be embraved—al! the 
hills ‘and valleys ‘of Stimbul from the Castle of the 
' Seven Towers to the’ cemetery of Eyiib; all Caista, 
val Pera, ns though you could drop your sight doc 
into them lia plunib-line; all Skutari az theory) it 





day directly heneathyou=three lines of bw ings 
groves, ‘and shipping, patenting - as fat as tle eye 
Can regen ri tarta Bircud meres on ames ram Bable beau by; 


and other stretches-of garden and village winding 





LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 243 


distant point of the horizon a cloud of suspicious- 
looking smoke, is taking word to the seraskier. 
After mounting about two hundred steps you reach 
a sort of covered terrace running all around the 
tower and enclosed with glass, where an attendant 
is always at hand to serve visitors with coffee. On 
first finding yourself in that transparent cage, sus- 
pended as it were between heaven and earth, with 
nothing to be seen but an immense blue space, 
and the wind howling and rattling the panes of 
glass and making the boards strain and creak, you 
are very apt to be attacked with vertigo and to feel 
strongly tempted to give up the view; but at sight 
of the ladder which leads to the window in the roof 
courage returns, and, climbing up with a beating 
heart, a cry of astonishment escapes you. It is an 
overpowering moment, and for a little while you re- 
main silent and transfixed. 

Constantinople lies spread out before you like a 
map, and with the turn of an eye the entire extent 
of the mighty metropolis can be embraced—all the 
hills and valleys of Stambul from the Castle of the 
Seven Towers to the cemetery of Eytib; all Galata, 
all Pera, as though you could drop your sight down 
into them like a plumb-line; all Skutari as though it 
lay directly beneath you—three lines of buildings, 
groves, and shipping, extending as far as the eye 
can reach along three shores of indescribable beauty, 


and other stretches of garden and village winding 


244 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


away inland until they fade out of view in the dis- 
tance; the entire length of the Golden Horn, smooth 
and glassy, dotted over with innumerable kiiks, 
which look like bright-colored flies swimming about 
on the surface of the water; all of the Bosphorus 
too, but, owing to the hills which run out into it 
here and there, it looks like a series of lakes, and 
each lake seems to be surrounded by a city, and 
each city festooned about with gardens: beyond the 
Bosphorus lies the Black Sea, whose blue surface 
melts into the sky; in the opposite direction are the 
Sea of Marmora, the Gulf of Nicomedia [Ismid], 
the Isles of the Princes, and the two coasts of Asia 
and Europe, white with villages; beyond the Sea of 
Marmora lie the Dardanelles, shining like a silver 
ribbon, and beyond them again a dazzling white 
light indicates the AXgean Sea, with a dark line 
showing the position of the Troad; beyond Skutari 
are seen Bithynia and the Olympus; beyond Stam- 
bul the brown undulating solitudes of Thrace; two 
gulfs, two straits, two continents, three seas, twenty 
cities, myriads of silver cupolas with gilded pinna- 
cles, a glory of light, an exuberance of color, until 
you doubt whether it is indeed your own planet 
spread out before you or some other heavenly body 


more highly favored by God. 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


And so on the Serasker Tower I asked myself, as 


LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 245 


I had already done over and over again on the old 
bridge, the Tower of Galata, at Skutari, how I could 
ever have been so infatuated with Holland; and not 
only did Holland now seem a poor dull place which 
one would tire of in a month, but Paris, Madrid, Se- 
ville as well. And then I would think miserably of 
my wretched descriptions—how often I had used the 
expressions superb, beautiful, magnificent, until now 
there were none left for this surpassing view; and 
yet at the same time I knew I would never be will- 
ing to subtract a syllable from what I had said 
about those other parts of Constantinople. My 
friend Rossasco would say, ‘ Well, why don’t you 
try this?” To which I would reply, “ But suppose 
I have nothing to say?” And indeed, incredible as 
it sounds, there really were times when, in certain 
lights and at certain hours of the day, the view did 
look almost poor, and I would exclaim in dismay, 
‘What has become of my beloved Constantinople ?” 
At others I would experience a feeling of sadness to 
think that while I had that immensity of space, 
that prodigality of beauty, spread out before me for 
the asking, my mother was sitting in a little room 
from which nothing could be seen but a dull court- 
yard and narrow strip of sky, as though I must 
somehow be to blame; and feel that I would give 
an eye to have my dear old lady on my arm and 
carry her off to see St. Sophia. As a rule, however, 


the days flew by as lightly and gayly as the hours at 


246 LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 


a feast, and when, by any chance, my friend and I 
were attacked by ill-humor, we had a sure and cer- 
tain method of curing ourselves. Going to Galata, 
we would jump into the two most gayly-decorated 
two-oared kaiks at the landing, and, calling out, 
““Kyutb!” presto, before we knew it, would find our- 
selves in the middle of the Golden Horn. The 
oarsmen, Mahmids or Bayezids or Ibrahims, about 
twenty years old or so, and endowed with arms of 
iron, would usually amuse themselves by racing, 
keeping up a series of shouts and cries and laugh- 
ing like children. Above, a cloudless sky, below a 
smooth transparent sea; throwing back our heads, we 
would inhale great breaths of the delicious scented 
air, and trail one hand over the side in the soft clear 
water. On fly the two kaiks; palaces, gardens, 
kiosks, and mosques glide by ; we seem to be borne 
on the wings of the wind across an enchanted world, 
and are blissfully conscious that we are young and at 
Stambul. Yunk sings, and I, while reciting half 
aloud some one of Victor Hugo’s ballads of the 
East, can see now on the right hand and now on 
the left, near by, afar off, a beloved face crowned 
with white hair which wears a tender smile and tells 
me,as plainly as though it were a voice speaking, 
that she appreciates and fully shares all my enjoy- 


ment. 


ST. SOPHIA. 








au 





H 
a 
= : 
H ‘ 
‘ - i Uy 
ae uy , 
i 
' 
tt 
A f 
' i 
J ~ 
1 
f n 
! 7 
f 
- 
" 
: t 
' 
FS 
fe 7 : 
‘ 
I : 
* 
1 - v 
: ; 7 
a 
i 
; 
2 
: 
1 
' ’ 
i 
: » 
‘ ; A 
5 
. 
; 
i 
i ! A 
{ 5 





f 


- ST. SOPHIA, 


- 
~ 


“ eo 


Phin cen, tena tees faite lige 
allowed to invoke bis Muse, L.do most gertalely % 
‘yoke mine'with bent knee and clasped hawwhy fe, _- 
ested my mind grows bewildered; “in jee ah 

nope subbietto.” and the majestic outlines of We 
ide Bywantine basilica tremble before my wii 
i. like images: Feflected in the water. May the Meae 
4 } inspire ihe, St. Sophia Hlamine me, and the emperar 
* _ Sustinian pardon me! 
ON oes ‘Tt was a fine morning in October when we at last 
ah set forth, accompanied by a Turkish , cavas from the 
~eTtalian-consulate and a Greek dragoman, to visit the 
‘terrestrial Pavadise, sceond firmament, car of the 
. cherubim, throne of the glory of God, wonder of the 
world, the greatest temple on earth after St. Peter's. 
“Pie Vist expression, as my friends of Burgos, 
Cologne, Milan, and Florence must know, is of 
course not ny own, nor would I ever dare ,to make 
~ it so: I merely quote it among the rest as one of the 
many terms consécrated by the enthusiasm, of the 
Grecks whidintrancersto:St. Sophia 
_ passed along the streets, We had purposely sup- 


219 





‘ ft 

: 

’ 
_ 
a 
' 
~ 
. 


“pl. BOPHIA. 





AND now, if even a poor writer of travels may be 
allowed to invoke his Muse, I do most certainly in- 
voke mine with bent knee and clasped hands, for, 
verily my mind grows bewildered, “im faccia al 
nobile subbietto,” and the majestic outlines of the 
great Byzantine basilica tremble before my vision 
like images reflected in the water. May the Muse 
inspire me, St. Sophia illumine me, and the emperor 
Justinian pardon me! 

It was a fine morning in October when we at last 
set forth, accompanied by a Turkish cavas from the 
Italian consulate and a Greek dragoman, to visit the 
terrestrial Paradise, second firmament, car of the 
cherubim, throne of the glory of God, wonder of the 
world, the greatest temple on earth after St. Peter’s. 
This last expression, as my friends of Burgos, 
Cologne, Milan, and Florence must know, is of 
course not my own, nor would I ever dare to make 
it so: I merely quote it among the rest as one of the 
many terms consecrated by the enthusiasm of the 
Greeks which our dragoman repeated to us as we 


passed along the streets. We had purposely sup- 
249 


250 ST. SOPHIA. 


plemented him by the old Turkish cavas in the 
hope—and we were not disappointed—that their two 
accounts might bring vividly before us the struggle 
between the two religions, histories, and nations, the 
legends and explanations of one magnifying the 
Church, those of the other the Mosque, in such a 
manner as to make us see St. Sophia as she should 
be seen; that is to say, with one eye Christian and 
the other Turkish. 

My expectations were very great and my curiosity 
was all on fire, and yet I realized then, as I do now, 
that the actual sight of a world-renowned object, no 
matter how fully it may justify its reputation, never 
quite comes up to the keen enjoyment one experi- 
ences when on his way to see it. If I could live 
over again one hour out of each of those days on which 
I saw some great sight for the first time, I would un- 
hesitatingly choose the one which intervenes be- 
tween the moment of saying, ‘‘ Now let us start,” 
and that in which the goal is reached. Those are 
the traveller’s most blissful hours. As you walk 
along you can feel your soul expand, preparing, as 
it were, to receive the streams of enthusiasm and 
delight soon to well up in it. You recall your boy- 
hood’s dreams, which then seemed so hopelessly far 
from realization; you remember how a certain old 
professor of geography, after pointing out Constan- 
tinople on the map of Europe, traced the outline of 


the great basilica in the air, a pinch of snuff be- 

























_ ae famous building; you hear 
ce, te vinging in your, head; your _ 
P ets our cars like the voice of a living porsen 
are y andl, awaits your cothing to reveal sam 
i s HY seerots, you sen above your head dim, pro- 
ae § ontlines’ of arch and pilaster and colgiun, 
a to the heavens, and 
pt inst, but a few steps more ure wanted to 
pyow ince to face with the reality, you linger to 
a ‘watch the passage of 2 lizard, tell 
milling dnecdote—anything that nay serve to 
‘biti for a few seconds, that monient te 

Ywhich ritwenty yearsyou hay, been looking for- 
ae ‘and which: yeu will remethber for the rest of 
yon ee a a 79, xa away what goes 


ener: again. 
= The avhsque of St.’ Sophia stands” Gyepusite th 
ee meat: ‘ehirance’ of* the ‘old Seragtio, On, reuolings, 
however, the open ee. which liea betwoean the 
twa, the first. i bo attract: Sten tion 1a, Hot the 


fount 


‘ oS “éealight ot aiftes which we stating ie ed 





intain of Ahm neg 


smiosque,- but the famous foftntain, of Multan Ahnied 
Hit, one of the richest and most tharantorisiie ux- 


} 





chases’! 


ST. SOPHIA. 251 


tween his thumb and fore finger; you see that room, 
that hearth, in front of which, during the coming 
winter, you will describe to a circle of wondering 
and attentive faces the famous building; you hear 
that name, St. Sophia, ringing in your head, your 
heart, your ears like the voice of a living person 
who calls, and awaits your coming to reveal some 
mighty secret: you see above your head dim, pro- 
digious outlines of arch and pilaster and column, 
mighty buildings which reach to the heavens, and 
when, at last, but a few steps more are wanted to 
bring you face to face with the reality, you linger to 
examine a pebble, watch the passage of a lizard, tell 
some trifling anecdote—anything that may serve to 
postpone, if but for a few seconds, that moment to 
which for twenty years you have been looking for- 
ward, and which you will remember for the rest of 
your life. And, truly, if you take away what goes 
before and what follows after, not so very much re- 
mains of the much-talked-of joys of seeing and ad- 
miring. - It is almost always a delusion, followed by 
a slight awakening, after which we obstinately de- 
lude ourselves again. 

The mosque of St. Sophia stands opposite the 
main entrance of the old Seraglio. On reaching, 
however, the open square which lies between the 
two, the first object to attract attention is, not the 
mosque, but the famous fountain of Sultan Ahmed 
III., one of the richest and most characteristic ex- 


252 ST. SOPHIA. 


amples of Turkish art. This exquisite little build- 
ing is not so much a monument asa caress in marble 
imprinted in a moment of passionate adoration by an 
enamored sultan upon the forehead of his beloved 
Stambul. I doubt if any but a woman’s pen can do 
it justice: mine, I feel convinced, is far too coarse 
and heavy to trace those delicate outlines. At first 
sight it hardly looks like a fountain at all, being in 
the form of a little square temple with a Chinese 
roof, whose undulating rim extends for some distance 
beyond the walls, and lends to the whole something 
of the character of a pagoda. At each corner rises 
a round tower furnished with small screened win- 
dows, or, rather, they are more like four charming 
kiosks, corresponding to the graceful cupolas on 
the roof which encircle the main central cupola. 
In each of the four walls are two niches, flanking a 
pointed arch, beneath which the water flows from 
a spout into a small basin. Around the edifice there 
runs an inscription which reads as follows: ‘ This 
fountain speaks to you in the following verse by 
Sultan Ahmed: Turn the key of this pure and tran- 
quil spring and call upon the name of God; drink 
of these inexhaustible and limpid waters and pray 
for the Sultan.” The little building is composed 
entirely of white marble. which, however, is almost 
hidden beneath the mass of ornamentation with 
which its walls are covered—arches, niches, tiny 


columns, roses, polygons, garlands, fretwork, gilding 


ST. SOPHIA. 253 


on a background of blue. Carving around the 
cupolas, inlaid-work below the roof, mosaics of a 
hundred different combinations of color, arabesques 
of every conceivable form,—all seem to vie with one 
another to attract attention and arouse admiration, 
until one’s powers of seeing and admiring are well- 
nigh exhausted. Not so much as a hand’s breadth 
of space is left free from carving, painting, gilding, 
or ornament of some sort. It is a prodigy of rich- 
ness, beauty, and patience, which should, by rights, 
be preserved under a glass case; and, as though it 
were too perfect to delight but one sense alone, you 
are tempted to break off a piece and put it in your 
mouth, feeling that it must taste good as well—a 
casket designed, as one would suppose, to guard 
some priceless treasure, and you long to open it and 
find the—what? Infant goddess, magic ring, or 
fabulous pearl. Time has to some extent faded the 
brilliant colors, dimmed the gilding, and darkened 
the marble; think, then, what this colossal jewel 
must have been when first unveiled, all fresh and 
and sparkling, before the eyes of the Solomon of 
the Bosphorus a hundred and sixty years ago! But, 
old and faded as it is, it undoubtedly occupies the 
first place among the lesser wonders of Constanti- 
nople, and is, moreover, an object so distinctively 
Turkish that, once seen, it claims a prominent posi- 
tion among that certain number of others which will 


dwell for ever in one’s memory, ready to rise up at 


254 ST. SOPHIA. 


the sound of the word “‘Stambul;” the background 
for all time against which will be thrown out one’s 
dreams and visions of the Orient. 

Looking across from the fountain, St. Sophia can 
be seen occupying one side of the intervening 
square. About the exterior there is nothing espe- 
cially noteworthy. The only points which attract 
the eye are the lofty white minarets, which rise at 
the four corners from pedestals each the size of a 
house. The celebrated dome looks small, and it 
seems impossible that this can be the same as that 
which we are wont to see, from the Bosphorus 
and Sea of Marmora and the hillsides of Asia, 
rearing its mighty form like the head of some Titan 
against the blue heavens. It is a flattened dome 
overlaid with lead, flanked by two semi-domes, 
and pierced at the base by a row of small windows. 
The four walls which support it are painted in 
broad bands of white and red and strengthened by 
enormous masses of masonry. A number of mean- 
looking buildings, baths, schools, hospitals, mauso- 
leums, and soup-kitchens, crowd around the base 
and effectually conceal the ancient architectural form 
of the basilica. Nothing can be seen but a heavy, 
irregular edifice, faded and bare as a fortress, and 
apparently totally inadequate to embrace the mighty 
expanse of St. Sophia’s great nave. Of the original 
basilica only the dome is visible, and even that has 


been despoiled of the silver splendor which, accord- 





ay 


ne 
















(SF. SopHtA — 


BEE th she Oyun. ASdid sae 6 ial 
fe oe tinaret was erected by Muhanasnil the Cow 
SO) Wieerarianbiher by Selim Th, thé two others by che 
Be ie tne wn tora son 
<a sixte MP eetitury added the buttresses te wtermy ther 
P Wieewalis shaken by an eartiejuake, and placed thy 
x ie wr ccn eee, 


anne: Mustats t. * Ibrahim, while 
. ee every one of the other small buildings which 
a med the Greek “church liate been cither de- 
royed od outright | or oe by’ thee erection of new 


= -.. all sides the mosque Rewds, Ne aad 
| Ebeats down ape, the church, of which the head 
_ Palloxe remains free, and even around that.the im- 
‘perial minarets mount guard like four gigantic sen- 
Beets On the énat side ther: is a doorway flanked 
ei: sie Herble anil porphyry columns; anvther on 
the sorith loads into a courtyard surrounded by low, 
arrreeniar buildings, i im the midst of which 1 fount Lin 
for abiutions plays beneath a little arched canopy 
Sipparicd on eight, small columns. Viewed from 
fhe oft8ide, there is nothing to distinguikl St. Sophia 
“from the Mosque ‘c fs S'Sophiia Stam bul, excep! 
that it is fearless and dingier ; far lesa would it ever 








ST. SOPHIA. 955 


ing to the Greeks, could once be seen from the sum- 
mit of the Olympus. All the rest is Mussulman: 
one minaret was erected by Muhammad the Con- 
queror, another by Selim II., the two others by the 
Third Murad, the same who toward the close of the 
sixteenth century added the buttresses to strengthen 
the walls shaken by an earthquake, and placed the 
huge bronze crescent on the summit of the dome, 
the gilding alone of which cost fifty thousand ducats. 
The ancient atrium has disappeared, and the baptistry 
has been converted into a mausoleum where are in- 
terred the remains of Mustafa I. and Ibrahim, while 
nearly every one of the other small buildings which 
adjoined the Greek church have been either de- 
stroyed outright or else, by the erection of new 
walls or some other alteration, changed past recog- 
nition: on all sides the mosque crowds, pushes, and 
bears down upon the church, of which the head 
alone remains free, and even around that the im- 
perial minarets mount guard like four gigantic sen- 
tinels. On the east side there is a doorway flanked 
by six marble and porphyry columns; another on 
the south leads into a courtyard surrounded by low, 
irregular buildings, in the midst of which a fountain 
for ablutions plays beneath a little arched canopy 
supported on eight, small columns. Viewed from 
the outside, there is nothing to distinguish St. Sophia 
from the other great mosques of Stambul, except 
that it is heavier and dingier; far less would it ever 


256 ST. SOPHTA. 


enter one’s head to name it “the greatest temple on 
earth after St. Peter’s.” 

Our guides conducted us by a narrow street skirt- 
ing the northern wall of the edifice to a bronze door, 
which, swinging slowly back on its hinges, admitted 
us to the eso-narthex. This is a very long and lofty 
hall lined with marbles, and still glowing here and 
there with ancient mosaics. Nine doors on the 
eastern side give access to the body of the church, 
opposite which five others formerly led to the exo- 
narthex, which, in turn, communicated by thirteen 
doors with the atrium. We had barely crossed the 
threshold when a turbaned sacristan demanded our 
firmans, and then, after donning slippers, at a sign 
from the guides we approached the middle door on 
the eastern side, which stood half open to receive 
us. The first effect is certainly quite overpowering, 
and for some moments we remained stunned and 
speechless. In a single glance one is confronted 
by an enormous space and a bold, architecture of 
semi-domes which seem to hang suspended in the 
air, enormous pilasters, mighty arches, gigantic col- 
umns, galleries, tribunes, arcades, over which floods 
of light are poured from a thousand great windows— 
a something I hardly know how to define of theatrical 
and regal rather than sacred; an ostentation of size 
and strength; a look of worldly pomp; a mixture 
of the classic, barbarous, fanciful, arrogant, and 


magnificent ; a stupendous harmony in which, with 


ST. SOPHIA. 257 


the formidable and thunderous notes of the pilasters 
and cyclopean arches, recalling the cathedrals of the 
North, there mingle soft, subdued strains of some 
Oriental air, the noisy music of the revels of Jus- 
tinian and Heraclitus, echoes of pagan chants, the 
choked voice of an effeminate and wornout race, and 
distant cries of Goth, of Vandal, and of Avar; a 
mighty defaced majesty, a sinister nakedness, a pro- 
found peace—St. Peter’s shrunken and_ plastered 
over, St. Mark’s enlarged and abandoned; a quite 
indescribable mingling of church, mosque, and 
temple, severe in aspect, puerile in adornment—of 
things old and new, faded colors, and curious, unta- 
miliar accessories: a sight, in short, so bewildering, 
so awe-inspiring, and at the same time so full of mel- 
ancholy, that for a time the mind cannot grasp its 
full meaning, but gropes about uncertainly, trying 
to find first what it is, and then words in which to 
express it. 

The plan of the edifice nearly approaches an 
equilateral rectangle, over the centre of which rises 
the great dome, supported on four mighty arches 
resting upon massive pilasters: these form, as it 
were, the skeleton of the entire building. From 
the arches on the right and left of the entrance 
there rise, before and beyond the great dome, two 
semi-domes, the three covering the entire nave, 
these semi-domes have six exedrie, of which the four 
on the sides are also covered with semi-domes, mak- 

Vou. I.—17 


258 ST. SOPHIA. 


ing four small circular temples enclosed in the large 
one. Between the two exedre at the east end of 
the building is the apse, which projects beyond the 
external wall, and is likewise covered with a domed 
roof. Thus seven semi-domes encircle the main one, 
two just beyond it and five more beyond these, all 
of them without any apparent support, and present- 
ing an extraordinary impression of lightness, as 
though they actually were, as a Greek poet once 
said, suspended by seven cords from the roof of the 
sky. All these domes are lighted by large windows 
arched and symmetrical. Between the four great 
pilasters, which form a square in the centre of the 
basilica, there rise to the right and left of the 
entrance eight wonderful columns of green marble, 
from which spring graceful arches richly carved 
with foliage, forming charming porticos on either 
side of the nave, and supporting at a great height 
two vast galleries, where are to be seen two other 
lines of columns and sculptured arches. <A third 
gallery, communicating with the first two, runs 
above the narthex, and opens out on the nave by 
means of three enormous arches supported on dou- 
ble columns. Other smaller galleries, resting upon 
porphyry columns, intersect the four small temples 
at the extremities of the nave, and from them rise 
other columns supporting tribunes. 

Such is the basilica. The mosque is, so to speak, 


spread over its surface and hung upon its walls. 


ST. SOPHIA. 259 


The mthrab—that is, the niche which indicates the 
direction in which Mecca lies—is hollowed out of 
one of the pilasters of the apse; to the right of it, 
high up on the wall, hangs one of the four prayer- 
carpets of the Prophet. In the angle of the apse 
nearest to the mihrab, reached by a steep little flight 
of stairs whose marble balustrade is carved with the 
most marvellous delicacy of workmanship, is the 
pulpit, surmounted by a queer conical roof and hung 
on either side with victorious banners of Muhammad 
II. Here the rhatib ascends to read the Koran,* 
and carries in his hand a drawn simeter, to signify 
that St. Sophia is a mosque acquired by the force of 
arms. Opposite the pulpit is the Sultan’s tribune 
enclosed within a gilded grating. Other pulpits or 
species of balconies, having railings of open-work 
carving, and supported on small marble columns and 
arabesqued arches, protrude here and there along 
the walls or toward the centre of the nave. On 
either side of the entrance stand two huge alabas- 
ter jars, found among the ruins of Pergamum and 
brought to Constantinople by Murad HII. Enormous 
green disks, bearing inscriptions from the Koran t 
in letters of gold, are hung below the pendentives, 


*This pulpit is the minbir, used only on Friday, and then by 
the rhatib to read a prayer for the Sultan, Khalif, and Islam.— 
TRANS. 

} The names of Allah, the Prophet, and four khalifs mentioned 


below are on these green disks, not verses from the Koran. —TRANSs. 


260 _ ST. SOPHIA. 


beneath which great mural slabs of porphyry bear 
the names of Allah, Mohammed, and the first four 
khalifs. In the pendentives may still be seen the 
gigantic wings of the four mosaic seraphim, whose 
faces are now concealed beneath golden roses. From 
the roofs of the domes hang innumerable silken 
cords, measuring almost the entire height of the 
building, from which are suspended ostrich eggs, 
lamps of wrought bronze, and crystal globes. Here 
and there stand cassia-wood reading-desks, inlaid 
with copper and mother-of-pearl, on which lie manu- 
script copies of the Koran. On the pavement are 
spread great numbers of rugs and mats. The walls 
are bare, whitish, yellowish, gray, still adorned in 
some places with discolored mosaics. The general 
aspect is inexpressibly mournful. 

The great marvel of the mosque is the central 
dome. Gazing up at it from the middle of the 
nave, it truly seems, as Mme. de Staél said of the 
dome of St. Peter’s, as though a vast abyss were 
suspended over one’s head. It is very lofty, with 
an enormous circumference, and is made to appear 
still larger from the fact that its depth is but one- 
sixth of its diameter.* Around its base runs a small 
gallery, above which are a row of forty arched 
windows, and around the crown are inscribed the 

*This is a mistake: the great dome of St. Sophia is 107 


feet across by 46 in height. (See Fergusson, ist. Architecture.) 


TRANS. 






ai tee, hy SNe “Sn Trers 7A x , 
~ ope + ‘a es yea ue a ; . 
ee a ye ae ede) ’ 









= 
nn, 
rp? 
= 
S 
im 
bac 
7 
Coad 
Ey 
oy 
‘ 


& 


yy 46 

































beneath wlio: teal’ esa raneraal yry t 
the oames of Allah, Mohammed, and tk: ir 7 
khalifs, ee en 
gigentie wings of the four mosale-e 
lacie. wre DOW conceale nent olde 
the’ roofs of ‘the domes hang: i rable’ 
vonds, measgring altnost the aaibeys ae 
lnilding, from which=are- suspended: bg 
henps of wrought bronge, dnd ayers 
and there stand cassin-wood/ readin 
with copper and nothorofpeid ¢n wba 
seript. copits-ef jhe Koran, Op the” 
‘spread great moahers of sigeand! theta hOGA 
are bars, whirieh, yellowieh, gray, still aq a 
some pluses with cinco SE) 
sepect is inexpressibly mournfal.— 
The’ great marvel of the omits 
dame. Gazing ap. at it-from:the middlo-of 
nave, it troly scems, as Mmeode Stedlis 
dome of St Peter's, a though % wast-3 
suspended over one’s head’ Tf ie very doliggoe 
at) enormous circumference, and ia wade fal pe 
still larger from the {het Chat ite depth iss ial 
nixth of ite Hlametes,*.~ Aroundits base ana ; 
gallery, above whielfvare w row ofotorty 
whatows, aod around’ (he eriwn fee meorib 


ae 
a 


me. 2 


a eee : 


Interior of the M osque of St. Sophia — in 
wre by 40 in height: (Seo Fergamon, Jif 


+ ‘4 





Pay 
¥ 


te} 
Aves 
i 
‘ 
r 
; ‘ 
' 
» 
. 


vee 
ae >, 2 


a 
i 


1 
} 


o 
A] 





ST. SOPHIA. 261 


words pronounced by Muhammad II. when he drew 
his horse up opposite the high altar on the day 
of the conquest of Constantinople: ‘‘ Allah is the 
light of heaven and earth.” These letters, white on 
a dark background, are some of them more than 
twenty-seven feet long. As is well known, this 
aérial prodigy could never have been constructed 
had ordinary materials been employed. The roofs 
were built of pumice-stone, which floats on the 
surface of water, and of bricks from the Isle of 
Rhodes, five of which hardly weigh as much as one 
ordinary brick; on each of them was inscribed the 
sentence from David, ‘ Deus im medio eius non 
commovebitur. Adiuvabit eam Deus vultu suo,” and 
with every twelfth row relics of various saints were 
walled in. During the progress of the building 
operations the priests chanted and Justinian at- 
tended in person clad in a coarse linen tunic, while 
immense crowds looked on in admiration; and this 
is hardly to be wondered at when we consider that 
the construction of this ‘second firmament,” which 
even at the present time is an object of wonder, was 
an undertaking without parallel in the sixth century. 
The common people believed it to be the result of 
magic, and the Turks must have had much ado for 
a long period after the conquest to keep their gaze 
fixed upon the east when praying in St. Sophia, 
instead of resting it upon that ‘stone heaven” above 


their heads. The dome covers, indeed, nearly half 


262 ST. SOPHIA. 


the nave, in such a manner as to light up and dom- 
inate the entire edifice: it can be seen, at least in 
part, from every point, and, wander where you will, 
you invariably bring up beneath it to find your gaze 
attracted for the hundreth time to that immeasurable 
space, where eye and mind float with ecstatic delight 
as though borne on wings. 

After inspecting the nave and dome one has but 
just begun to see St. Sophia. Whoever takes the 
least shadow, for example, of historical interest in 
the building could spend an hour over the columns 
alone. Here may be found spoils from every temple 
in the world. The four columns of green marble 
supporting the large galleries were presented to Jus- 
tinian by the magistrates of Ephesus, having for- 
merly stood in the temple of Diana, which was 
burned by Herostratus. The eight porphyry columns 
which stand two and two between the pilasters were 
a part of the temple of the Sun at Baalbek, and 
were carried thence by Aurelian to Rome. Others 
are from the temple of Jupiter at Cyzicus and of 
Helios at Palmyra—from the temples of Thebes, of 
Athens, of Rome, of the Troad, the Cyclades, and 
from Alexandria: altogether, they present an end- 
less variety of style, form size, and color. What 
between the columns, the railings and pedestals, and 
the portions of the ancient covering of the walls 
which still remain, there are marbles from every 


quarry of the Archipelago, Asia Minor, Africa, and 


i 
WoaNtd 
LaneAT,, |. 
f (ig 
Loe ee u 
> 
“Sip 7 
: ome i +f 
. 
aon 
- i) 
: x ; 
MU vo 
eae 
=e Aan 
-. “) 
> j° jl 7 | 
e. 
en) 
a ee 
; 
» 
7 
a 
i 
f 
i 
x 






pa 
bp", ; 





ry 





j 4 
i 
- - =~ ; 
sa. : a 
\ ath. . 7 
as * 


® 


ST. SOPHIA. i 


White Bosphorus warble specklud with 
faltiwith the black Coltie veined with 
Said green marble of Laconia is reflected in 
» Ol aabyan, while the Egyptian - spotted 

x fy siarred granite of Vessaly, the red-acd- 
Petine wf Mt. Jassoy, and pale caristiy 
et iron,» Mingle their colors with: the 


iat oa gold of the Maturi- 
pamatblo of Harve. Redes ti 


= setae the carniver; tases, and 
Ng Cortathian capitals.carved with 
gem ieals,; and strange vaeeiton 


Pvcaipen design ee alandl Hize, 


— together by chance—shafis of ; 
“ornamented with Strange 8c te 














, an, plidheeece wild and bavi magnit- 

feenee Which, - while, eteoutrercs the rales of soad 
elie, es the: cye with an ungeaiptilde f5e2- 

te = Fam ie nave! ape hardiy appreciates the wast 

ie shze of: the lmilding, of : webekh it indecd forma’ bat a 

+ “couiparatively. small ‘part, The tywo -aisles beneath 

* ‘ thelarge galleries aro -ge theineelves two large oddl- 
fices, out of either ong of which a » eparaie tempi: 
might ‘First Columns Erected in S St. Sophia — 


a een hy’ large vaulted Opes ance (piled 











aiiqo? 12 ni bsios1t 2nmuloD tat 


‘ ; a F > ,% — 





ST. SOPHIA. 263 


Gaul: the white Bosphorus marble speckled with 
black contrasts with the black Celtic veined with 
white ; the green marble of Laconia is reflected in 
the blue Libyan, while the Egyptian spotted 
porphyry, starred granite of Thessaly, the red-and- 
white striped stone of Mt. Jassey, and pale caristio 
streaked with iron, mingle their colors with the 
purple Phrygian, red Synadian, gold of the Mauri- 
tius, and snow-white marble of Paros. Added to 
this wealth of color is the indescribable variety of 
form, as seen in the friezes, the cornices, roses, and 
balustrades, and odd Corinthian capitals carved with 
foliage, crosses, animals, and strange chimerical 
figures, all interlaced: others, again, belong to no 
erder in especial, of curious design and unequal size, 
evidently coupled together by chance—shafts of 
columns, pedestals ornamented with strange sculp- 
tures, injured by time and mutilated by sabre-cuts, 
—altogether an effect of wild and barbarous magnif- 
icence which, while it outrages the rules of good 
taste, attracts the eye with an unresistible fasci- 
nation. 

From the nave one hardly appreciates the vast 
size of the building, of which it indeed forms but a 
comparatively small part. The two aisles beneath 
the large galleries are in themselves two large edi- 
fices, out of either one of which a separate temple 
might be formed. Each of these is divided in three 


and separated by large vaulted openings. Indeed, 


264 ST. SOPHIA. 


everything here, column, architrave, pilaster, roof, 
is gigantic. Passing beneath these arches, you can 
barely see the nave from between the columns of the 
Ephesian temple, and seem almost to be in another 
basilica: the same effect is produced from the gal- 
leries, reached by a winding stair with very gentle 
gradations, or rather it is an inclined plane, for 
there are two steps, and one might readily ascend it 
on horseback. The galleries were used as gyne- 
conitis; that is, those parts of the church reserved 
for women: penitents remained without in the eso- 
narthex, while the mass of the faithful occupied the 
nave. Lach one of these galleries is capable of ac- 
commodatiug the entire population of a suburb of 
Constantinople. You no longer feel as though you 
were in a church, but rather walking in the foyer of 
some Titanic theatre, expecting at any moment to 
hear the sudden outburst of a chorus sung by a hun- 
dred thousand voices. In order to realize the im- 
mense size and obtain a really good view of the 
mosque one must lean well over the railing of the 
gallery and look around. Arches, roofs, pilasters, 
have all swelled to gigantic proportions. The 
green disks which, seen from below, appear to 
measure about the length of a man’s arm, are now 
large enough to cover a house. The windows look 
like portes-cochtres of palaces, the seraphim wings 
like the spread sails of a vessel, the tribunes like 


vast open squares; while it makes one’s head swim 


ST. SOPIITA. 265 


to look up at the dome at all. Casting the eyes 
below, one is taken aback to find how high he has 
mounted: the pavement of the nave is far away at 
the bottom of an abyss, while the pulpits, jars from 
Pergamum, mats, and lamps seem to have shrunken 
in the most extraordinary manner. One rather cu- 
rious circumstance about the mosque of St. Sophia 
is particularly noticeable from this elevated position : 
the nave not being precisely in line with Mecca, 
toward which it is incumbent upon every good Mus- 
sulman to turn while praying, all the mats and strips 
of carpet are placed obliquely with the lines of the 
building, and produce upon the eye the same dis- 
agreeable effect as though there were some gross 
defect in the perspective. From there, too, one is 
enabled to see and observe all the life of the mosque. 
Turks are kneeling upon the mats with foreheads 
touching the pavement; others stand erect and mo- 
tionless as statues, with hands held before their 
faces, as though interrogating their palms; some are 
seated cross-legged at the foot of a pilaster, much 
as they would rest beneath the shade of a tree; 
veiled women kneel in a distant corner; old men 
seated before the lecterns read from the Koran; an 
man is hearing a group of boys recite sacred 
verses; and here and there beneath distant arches 
and through the galleries the forms of rhatib, oman, 
or muczzin and various other functionaries of the 


mosque glide noiselessly back and forth, as though 


266 ST. SOPHIA. 


their feet hardly touched the ground, clad in strange, 
unfamiliar costumes, while the vague, subdued mur- 
mur of those who pray and those who read, that 
clear, steady light, the thousand odd-looking lamps, 
the deserted apse and echoing galleries, the immen- 
sity of it all, the past associations and present peace- 
fulness,—combine to produce such an impression 
of greatness and of mystery as neither words can 
express nor time efface. 

3ut the dominating sensation, as I have already 
said, is one of sadness, and that great poet who 
compared St. Sophia to a ‘‘ colossal sepulchre ” was 
not far wrong. Qn all sides you see the signs of a 
barbarous devastation, and experience more melan- 
choly in the thought of what has been than pleasure 
in contemplating what still remains. After the first 
feelings of amazement have to some extent subsided, 
one’s mind turns intuitively to the past. And 
even now, after a lapse of three years, I can never 
think of the great mosque without trying to imagine 
the church. Overthrow the pulpits of the Mussul- 
man, remove the lamps and jars, cut down the disks 
and tear away the porphyry slabs, reopen the doors 
and windows that have been bricked up, scrape 
away the plaster which covers wall and roof, and, 
behold! the basilica whole and new as it appeared 
on that day, thirteen centuries ago, when Justinian 
exclaimed, ‘ Glory be to God, who has judged me 


worthy to perform this mighty work! O Solomon, I have 


ST. SOPHIA. 267 


surpassed thee!” Every object upon which the eye 
rests shines or glitters or flashes like the enchanted 
palaces in a fairy tale. The enormous walls, once 
more covered with precious marbles, send back re- 
flections of gold, ivory, steel, coral, and mother-of- 
pearl; the markings and veins of the marble look 
like coronets or garlands of flowers; wherever a 
ray of sunlight chances to fall upon those walls, 
all encrusted with crystal mosaics, they flash and 
sparkle as though set with diamonds; the capitals, 
entablatures, doors, and friezes of the arches are all 
of gilded bronze; the roofs of aisle and gallery are 
covered with angelic forms and figures of saints 
painted upon a golden background; before the 
pilasters in the chapels, beside the doors, between 
the columns, stand marble and bronze statues and 
enormous candelabra of solid gold; superb copies 
of the Gospels lie upon lecterns adorned like kings’ 
thrones ; lofty ivory crosses and vases encrusted with 
pearls stand upon the altars. The extremity of the 
nave is nothing but one blaze of light from a mass 
of glittering objects: here is the gilded bronze 
balustrade of the choir, the pulpit overlaid with 
forty thousand pounds of silver—the Egyptian 
tribute for a whole year; the seats of the seven 
priests, the Patriarch’s throne, and that of the 
emperor gilded, carved, inlaid, set with pearls, so 
that when the sun shines full upon them one is 
forced to avert the eye. Beyond all these splendors 


268 ST. SOPHIA. 


in the apse a still more vivid blaze is seen proceed- 
ing from the altar itself, the table of which, sup- 
ported upon four gold piilars, is composed of a 
fusion of silver, gold, lead, and pearls; above it 
rises the ciborium, formed of four pillars of pure 
silver supporting a massive gold cupola, surmounted 
by a globe and by a cross also of gold weighing two 
hundred and sixty pounds.* Beyond the altar is 
seen the gigantic image of Holy Wisdom, whose feet 
touch the pavement and head the roof of the apse. 
High over all this magnificence shine and glisten the 
seven semi-domes overlaid with mosaics of crystal 
and gold, and the mighty central dome covered with 
figures of apostle and evangelist, the Virgin and the 
cross, all colored, gilded, and brilliant like a roof of 
jewels and flowers. And dome and pillar, statue and 
candelabra, each and every gorgeous object, is re- 
peated in the immense mirror of the pavement, 
whose polished marbles are joined together in un- 
dulating lines, which, seen from the four main en- 
trances, have the effect of four majestic rivers ruffled 
by the wind. But we must not forget the atrium— 
surrounded by columns, ana walls covered with mo- 
saics—in which stood marble fountains and eques- 
trian statues; and the thirty-two towers whose bells 
made so formidable a clamor that they could be heard 
throughout the seven hills; or the hundred bronze 

* Some authorities give the weight of this cross as seventy-five 


pounds, —TRANS. 


ST. SOPHIA. 269 


doors decorated with bas-reliefs and inscriptions in 
silver; or the hall of the synod; the imperial apart- 
ments; the sacerdotal prisons; the baptistry; the 
vast sacristies overflowing with treasure ; and a lab- 
yrinth of vestibules, tricliniums, corridors, and secret 
stairways built in the walls and leading to tribunes 
and hidden oratories. 

And now let us in fancy attend some great state 


function—an imperial marriage, a council, a corona- 





tion. From the enormous palace of the Cesars the 
glittering procession sweeps forth through streets 
flanked by thousands of columns, perfumed with 
myrrh, and spread with flowers and myrtle. The 
houses on either side are decorated with precious 
vases and silken hangings. Two bands, the one of 
azzurri, the other verdi, precede the cortége, which 
advances amid the songs of poets and noise of the 
heralds shouting vivas in all the tongues of the em- 
pire, and there, seated like an idol laden with pearls 
in a golden car with purple hangings, and drawn by 
two white mules, the emperor appears, wearing the 
tiara surmounted by a cross, and surrounded with all 
the pomp of a Persian monarch. The haughty ec- 
clesiastics advance to the atrium to receive him, and 
all that throng of courtiers, attendants, place-seek- 
ers, sycophants, lord high constables, chief eu- 
nuchs, master-thieves, corrupt magistrates, spurious 
patricians, cowardly senators, slaves, buffoons, cas- 


uists, mercenaries, adventurers from every land, 


270 ST. SOPHIA. 


the entire glittering rabble of gilded offscourings, 
pours through the twenty-seven doors and into the 
huge nave lit up by six thousand candelabras. Then 
along the choir-rail and beneath arcade and _tri- 
bune there is a coming and going; a movement and 
mingling of bared heads and purple cloaks ; a way- 
ing of jewelled plumes and velvet caps; the glitter 
of golden chains and silver breastplates; an inter- 
change of ceremonious greetings and courtly saluta- 
tions; the constant rustle and sweep of silken gar- 
ments aud rattle of jewelled hilts; while soft 
perfumes load the air and the vast servile throng 
makes the sacred edifice ring again with shouts of 
admiration and profane applause. 

After making the circuit of the mosque several 
times in silence, we gave our guides permission to 
talk. They commenced by showing us the chapels 
built beneath the galleries, now, like the rest of the 
basilica, despoiled of everything of value: some of 
them, like the opistodomo of the Parthenon, serve as 
treasuries, where Turks who are about to start on 
long journeys deposit their money and other val- 
uables to be secure from robbery, sometimes leav- 
ing their possessions there, under the protection 
of Allah, for years at a time; others have been 
closed up and are used either as infirmaries for 
the sick, where they lie awaiting death or recoy- 
ery, or else places of confinement for the insane, 


whose melancholy cries or bursts of wild laughter 


ST. SOPHIA. 271 


awaken from time to time the echoes of the vast 
building. 

We were now reconducted to the centre of the 
nave, and the Greek dragoman began to recount the 
marvels of the basilica. The design, it is quite true, 
was sketched by the two architects, Anthemius of 
Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, but the first concep- 
tion came to them through angelic inspiration ; it 
was also an angel who suggested to Justinian the 
idea of opening the three windows in the apse to 
represent the three Persons of the Trinity; in the 
same way the hundred and seven columns of the 
church stand for the hundred and seven pillars which 
support the House of Wisdom. It took seven years 
merely to collect the necessary materials for con- 
structing the edifice, while a hundred master-build- 
ers were employed to overlook the ten thousand 
workmen, five thousand on one side and five thou- 
sand on the other, who labored at its erection. 
When the walls had risen to the height of but a few 
hands only from the ground more than four hundred 
and fifty quintals of gold had already been expended. 
The outlay for the building alone amounted to 
twenty-five million frances. The church was conse- 
crated by the Patriarch five years eleven months 
and ten days after the first stone was laid, and Jus- 
tinian celebrated the occasion by feasts and sacrifices 
and distributions of money and food which were 


prolonged for two weeks. 


272 ST. SOPHIA. 


At this point the Turkish cavas interrupted in 
order to call our attention to the pilaster upon which 
Muhammad II. left the bloody imprint of his right 
hand on the day of his victorious entrance, as though 
to seal his conquest; he then pointed out the so- 
called “cold window,” near the mihrab, through 
which a perpetual current of cool air inspires the 
inost eloquent discourses from the greatest orators 
of Islamism. He next showed us, close by another 
window, the famous “ shining stone,” a slab of trans- 
parent marble which gleams like crystal when struck 
Moe 


by the sun’s rays, and made us touch the “‘ sweating 
y Ys, S 


? on the left of the north entrance. This 


column,’ 
column is overlaid with bronze, through a crack in 
which the stone can be seen covered with moisture. 
And finally he showed us a block of hollowed-out 
marble, brought from Bethlehem, in which, it is said, 
was placed immediately after his birth Sidi Yssa, 
“the Son of Mary, apostle of, and Spirit proceeding 
out from, God, worthy of all honor both in this world 
and the next.” But it struck me that neither Turk 
nor Greek placed very much faith in this relic. 

The Greek now took up his parable, and led us 
by a certain walled-up doorway in the gallery, in 
order to recount the celebrated legend of the Greek 
bishop; and now his manner was one of such en- 
tire belief that, if it was not sincere, it was certainly 
wonderfully well feigned. It seems that at the very 


moment when the Turks burst into the church of St. 


ST. SOPHIA. Dike 


Sophia a bishop was in the act of celebrating mass 
at the high altar. Leaving the altar at sight of 
the invaders, he ascended to one of the galleries, 
where some Turks, following in hot pursuit, saw him 
disappear within this little door, which was instantly 
closed up by a stone wall. Throwing themselves 
against it, the soldiers tried with all their force to 
break it down, hammering and pounding furiously 
against the stones, but with no other result than to 
leave the marks of their weapons upon the wall. 
Masons were sent for, who worked an entire day 
with pickaxes and crowbars, finally abandoning the 
attempt: after them every mason in Constantinople 
tried in turn to effect an opening, but one and all 
failed to make any impression upon the miraculous 
wall, which has remained closed ever since. On that 
day, however, when the profaned basilica shall be 
restored to the worship of Christ the wall will open 
of its own accord, and the bishop will come forth, 
wearing his episcopal robes, and, chalice in hand, 
his face illumined as with a celestial vision, will 
mount the steps of the altar and resume the mass at 
the very point where he left off centuries ago; and 
then will be the dawn of a new era for the city of 
Constantine. 

As we were about leaving the building the Turk- 
ish sacristan, who had followed us all about, loung- 
ing and yawning, gave us a handful of bits of 


mosaic, which he had dug out of a wall shortly 
Vou. 1.—18 


274 ST. SOPHIA. 


before, and the dragoman, whom this incident had 
interrupted as he was about to launch forth into the 
account of the profanation of St. Sophia, resumed 
his recital. 

| certainly hope, however, that no one will inter- 
rupt me, now that the whole scene has been brought 
so vividly before me by this description of the 
building. 

Hardly had the report been noised abroad through- 
out Constantinople, at about seven in the morning, 
that the Turks had actually scaled the walls, than 
an immense throng of people rushed to St. Sophia 
for refuge. There were about a hundred thousand 
persons in all—renegade soldiers, monks, priests, 
senators, thousands of virgins from the convents, 
members of patrician families laden with their 
treasures, high state dignitaries, and princes of the 
imperial blood,—all pouring through nave and gal- 
lery and arcade, treading upon one another in every 
recess of the huge building, and mingling in one in- 
extricable mass with the dregs of the population, 
slaves, and malefactors escaped from the prisons 
and galleys. The mighty basilica resounded with 
shrieks of terror such as are heard in a theatre at 
the outbreak of fire. When every nook and corner, 
gallery and chapel, was filled to overflowing, the 
doors were shut to and securely bolted, and the 
wild uproar of the first few moments gave place to 


a terror-stricken silence. Many still believed that 


ST. SOPHIA. 275 


the victors would not dare to violate the sanctity of 
St. Sophia; others awaited with a stubborn sense of 
security the appearance of the angel foretold by the 
prophets who was to annihilate the Turkish army 
before the advance-guard should have reached the 
Column of Constantine; others, again, had ascended 
to the gallery running around the interior of the 
dome, from whose windows they could watch the 
movements of the enemy and impart their intelli- 
gence by signs to the hundred thousand strained and 
ashy faces turned up to them from the nave and gal- 
leries below. An immense white mass could be seen 
covering the city-walls from the Blacherne to the 
Golden Gate, from which four shining bands were 
seen to detach themselves and advance between the 
houses like four torrents of lava, increasing in vol- 
ume and noise and leaving behind them a track of 
smoke and flame. These were the four attacking 
columns of the Turkish army driving before them 
the disorganized remainder of the Greek forces, and 
burning and plundering as they came, converging 
toward St. Sophia, the Hippodrome, and the imperial 
palace. As the advance-guard reached the second 
hill the blare of their trumpets suddenly smote upon 
the ears of the terrified throng in the basilica, who 
fell upon their knees in agonized supplication ; but 
even then there were many who still looked for the 
angel to appear, and others who clung to the hope 
that a feeling of awe at the vastness and majesty of 


276 ST. SOPHIA. 


that building, dedicated to the worship of God, 
might hold the invaders in check. But even this 
last illusion was soon dispelled. Through the thou- 
sand windows there broke on their ears a confused 
roar of human voices mingled with the clashing of 
arms and shrill blare of trumpets, and a moment 
later the first blows of the Ottoman sabres fell upon 
the bronze doors of the vestibule and resounded 
throughout the entire building, sounding the death- 
knell of the listening multitude, who, feeling the 
chill breath of the grave blow upon them, abandoned 
hope and recommended their souls to the mercy of 
God. Before long the doors were battered in or 
struck from their hinges, and a savage horde of 
janissaries, spahis, tummarioti, dervishes, and sciaus, 
covered with dust and blood, their faces contorted 
with the fury of battle, rapine, and murder, appeared 
in the openings, At sight of the enormous nave, 
glittering with gold and precious stones, they sent up 
a great shout of astonishment and joy, and, pouring 
in like a furious torrent, abandoned themselves to the 
work of pillage and destruction. Some busied them- 
selves at once in securing the women and virgins, 
valuable booty for the slave-market, who, stupetied 
with terror, offered no resistance, but voluntarily 
held out their arms for the chains. Others attacked 
the rich furnishings of the church: tabernacles were 
violated, images overthrown, ivory crucifixes trod- 


den under foot, while the mosaics, mistaken for pre- 


ST. SOPHIA. Di 


cious stones, fell under the blows of the cimeters in 
glittering showers into the cloaks and caftans held 
open to receive them; pearls, detached from their 
settings with sabre-points, rolled about over the 
pavement, chased like living creatures and fought 
over with savage kicks and blows. The high altar 
was broken up into a thousand pieces of gold and 
silver; thrones, pulpits, the choir-rail, all disap- 
peared as though swept away by an avalanche of 
rock and stone, and still those Asiatic hordes con- 
tinued to pour into the church in blood-stained 
waves, and on all sides nothing could be seen but a 
whirlwind of drunken ruffians, some of whom had 
placed tiaras on their heads, while others wore differ- 
ent parts of the sacerdotal vestments over their own 
clothing. Chalices and receptacles for the Host 
were waved aloft, and troops of newly-acquired 
slaves, bound two and two with ecclesiastical scarfs 
of gold, and horses and camels laden with plunder, 
were driven over the pavement strewn with broken 
fragments of statues, torn copies of the Evangels, 





and relics of the saints—a barbarous and _ sacri- 
legious orgy in which shouts of triumph, fierce 
threats, bursts of hoarse laughter, children’s cries, 
the neighing of horses, and shrill clanging of trum- 
pets mingled in one overpowering uproar, until, sud- 
denly, the mad tumult ceased, and in the awed hush 
which followed the august figure of Muhammad II. 


appeared in a doorway, on horseback and surrounded 


278 ST. SOPHIA. 


by a group of princes, viziers, and generals, haughty 
and impassive, like the living representative of the 
vengeance of God. Rising in his stirrups, he an- 
nounced in a voice of thunder, which re-echoed 
throughout the whole of the devastated building, the 
first formula of the new religion: ‘ Allah is the light 


of heaven and earth.” 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


















fone ee: Vie way to the moeqne 
einen ceapaas the pains ohare ; 
‘Dolnabighch: i 1 Mo: ‘teach ‘ite paliiow Fro as 
| “pas Nbrodgit the populous distriet_nf- Top- 
Angel bebwaen great gusi-foundry and an -inr- 
phat Piidy traversing.the entire Mussulman 
‘of Putidalti, which occupies, the -site of the 
Atanteion, GORE Out upon # spacious wper 
oe ths mare un wn the water's edge, beyond which and wm 1" 
a - Ba shore of the podghonts rines the fanious revther 
“ee ~ pip ae sultans. ae 
S Bedethe: hatenst mnaiide bites pos il nay Ah 
 ambdeal pt wad Wewedt aes Me yegti Will — the one 
ef be Wiel Bere.wnd can only be qurbvenniid. Mn 
Mingle view by taking a kiik =n gycemeg destin 
ee The facades, mbar ts bed Seto vo + 
berath,: ook, owas! a alla eens 
‘tea ane. bhi: 
void it. 


ny 









| 5 











DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


Every Friday the Sultan says his prayers in some 
one of the mosques of Constantinople. 

We saw him one day on his way to the mosque of 
Abdul-Mejid, which stands on the European shore of 
the Bosphorus not far from the imperial palace of 
Dolmabaghcheh. To reach this palace from Galata 
you pass through the populous district of Top- 
Khaneh, between a great gun-foundry and an im- 
mense arsenal, and, traversing the entire Mussulman 
quarter of Fundukli, which occupies the site of the 
ancient Aianteion, come out upon a spacious open 
square on the water’s edge, beyond which and on the 
shore of the Bosphorus rises the famous residence 
of the sultans. 

It is the largest marble building reflected in the 
waters of the strait from Seraglio hill to the mouth 
of the Black Sea, and can only be embraced in a 
single view by taking a kaik and passing along its 
front. The facade, nearly a half (Italian) mile in 
length, looks toward Asia, and can be seen at a 
great distance gleaming between the water’s blue 


and deep green summits of the hills behind it. 


281 


282 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


Properly speaking, it can hardly be called a palace, 
since it is not the result of any one architectural plan. 
The various parts are detached and present an extra- 
ordinary mixture of styles—Arabic, Greek, Asiatic, 
Gothic, Turkish, Romanesque, and Renaissance— 
combining the stateliness of the royal European 
palaces with the almost effeminate grace and charm 
of those of Granada and Seville. It might be 
called, instead of an imperial palace, an imperial 
city, like that of the emperor of China, and, more 
from the peculiarity of its arrangements than its 
great size, looks as though instead of a single mon- 
arch, a dozen kings, friends or brothers, might oc- 
cupy it, dividing their time between amusement and 
complete idleness. Seen from the Bosphorus, there 
are a series of fagades, looking like a row of theatres 
and temples, covered with an indescribable mass of 
ornamentation, apparently, as a Turkish poet has 
said, thrown broadcast by a madman’s hand, and 
which, like the famous Indian pagoda, weary the 
eye out almost at the first glance. They seem to be 
stone memorials of the mad caprices, loves, and in- 
trigues of the dissolute princes who have inhabited 
them. Rows of Doric and Ionic pillars, light as the 
pole of a lance; windows framed in festooned cor- 
nices and twisted columns; arches carved with 
flowers and foliage, surmounting doors covered with 
fretwork ; charming little balconies with open-work 


sculpture; trophies, roses, vines, and garlands which 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 283 


knot and intertwine with one another; delicate 
fancies in marble budding forth in the entablatures, 
running along the balconies, surrounding the win- 
dows; a network of arabesques extending from door 
to roof; a bloom and pomp and delicacy of execu- 
tion and richness of design which lends to each one 
of the smaller palaces forming a part of the whole 
the character of some masterpiece of the work- 
man’s chisel; and so impossible does it seem that 
the design could ever have emanated from the brain 
of a placid Armenian architect that one is rather 
tempted to ascribe its origin to a dream of some 
enamored sultan sleeping with his head upon the 
breast of an ambitious lady-love. Before it stretches 
a line of lofty marble pilasters connected by a 
gilded screenwork of boughs and flowers intertwined 
with such marvellous delicacy that at a little distance 
it has all the appearance of a lace curtain which at 
any moment may be carried away by a puff of wind. 
Long flights of marble stairs lead from the entrances 
to the water’s edge, and disappear beneath the waves. 
Everything is white, fresh, and sparkling, as though 
completed but yesterday. No doubt the eye of an 
artist would detect a thousand minor errors in com- 
position and taste; but the effect as a whole of that 
vast and magnificent pile of buildings, that array of 
palaces, white as the driven snow, set like so many 
jewels and crowned with verdure, reflected in the 
shining waters below, is one of power, of mystery, 


284 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


of luxurious pomp, and voluptuous pleasure which 
almost supersedes that of the old Seraglio itself. 
Those who have had the good fortune to see it af- 
firm that the interior fully comes up to the exterior 
of the building. Long suites of apartments, whose 
walls are covered with brilliant and fantastic fres- 
coes, open into one another by doors of cedar and 
cassia-wood; corridors flooded with soft radiance 
lead to other rooms lighted from crimson crystal 
domes, and baths which seem to have been fashioned 
from a single block of Paros marble ; lofty balconies 
overhang mysterious gardens, and groves of cy- 
press and rose trees, from which, through long 
perspectives of Moorish porticoes, the blue waters of 
the sea are seen sparkling in the sunlight beyond ; 
and windows, terraces, balconies, kiosks, everything, 
brilliant with flowers, and everywhere cascades of 
water shooting into the air to fall back in filmy 
showers upon green turf and marble pavement; 
while in all directions there open up enchanting 
views of the Bosphorus, the cool breezes from 
whose surface impart a delicious freshness to every 
corner of the great building. 

On the side facing toward Fundukli there is an 
imposing entrance, covered with a mass of orna- 
inentation, out of which the Sultan was expected to 
appear and cross the square. Not another monarch 
upon earth has such beautiful surroundings in which 


to issue in state from his palace and show himself. to 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 985 


his subjects. Standing at the foot of the hill,—on 
one side is the entrance to the palace, looking like : 
royal triumphal arch; on the other the beautiful 
mosque of Abdul-Mejid, flanked by two graceful 
minarets ; opposite is the Bosphorus; and beyond 
rise the green hills of Asia dotted over with ki- 
osks, palaces, mosques, and villages of every va- 
riety of form and color, like some great scattered 
city decked out for a fete; farther on is seen the 
smiling beauty of Skutari, with her funereal crown 
of cypress trees; and between the two banks a 
never-ending procession of sailing vessels; men-of- 
war with flags flying; crowded steamboats, looking 
as though their decks were heaped with flowers ; 
Asiatic ships of strange, obsolete design; launches 
from the Seraglio; princely barges ; flocks of birds 
skimming over the surface of the water—a scene 
at once so full of peace and regal beauty that the 
stranger whose eye wanders over it as he awaits the 
coming of the imperial cortége finds himself pictur- 
ing the fortunate possessor of all these things as en- 
dowed with angelic beauty and the smiling serenity 
of an infant. 

A half hour before the appointed time two com- 
panies of soldiers wearing the uniform of zouaves 
stationed themselves in the square to keep the way 
cleared for the Sultan’s passage, and betore long the 
spectators began to arrive in crowds. It is always 


amusing to take note of the queerness and variety 


286 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


of the people who assemble on such occasions. Here 
and there elegant private carriages were drawn 
up to one side, filled with Turkish great ladies, the 
gigantic form of a mounted eunuch standing guard 
at each door, immovable as pieces of marble; there 
were hired open turnouts containing English ladies, 
groups of tourists with opera-glasses hanging at 
their sides, among whom on this occasion I recog- 
nized the languishing face of the irresistible youth 
from the Hotel de Byzance, come, no doubt, cruel 
charmer! to crush with one triumphant glance 
his powerful but unhappy rival. A few long-haired 
individuals wandering about the outskirts of the 
crowd with portfolios under their arms I took to be 
artists animated by a faint hope of being able to 
make a hasty sketch of the imperial features. Near 
the band-stand was a strikingly beautiful French 
woman, whose conspicuous dress and free, hardened 
bearing suggested a cosmopolitan adventuress come 
hither to attract the eye of the Sultan himself, es- 
pecially as I seemed to read in her glance the “ fear- 
ful joy of a mighty enterprise.” There was also a 
sprinkling of those old Turks, fanatical and sus- 
picious subjects of the empire, who never fail to be 
present whenever their Padishah appears in public, 
in order that they may be assured by the evidence 
of their own senses that he is alive and well for the 
glory and prosperity of the universe. It is, in fact, 


precisely that his people may have this proof of his 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 287 


continued existence that the Sultan thus shows him- 
self every Friday, since it might easily happen 
again, as it has before, that his death, brought about 
either by violence or from natural causes, would 
through some intrigue of the court be concealed 
from the populace. Then there were beggars, and 
Mussulman dandies, and eunuchs out of employment, 
and dervishes, among the last-named of whom I 
noticed one tall, old, lean specimen who stood mo- 
tionless gazing with fierce eyes and a most sinister 
expression at the door of the palace, exactly as 
though he only awaited the Sultan’s appearance to 
plant himself in his path and fling in his teeth the 
words addressed by the dervish of the Orientals to 
Pasha Ali of Tepelen: ‘ Accursed one! you are 


no better than a dog.” 


But such examples of in- 
spired candor have gone out of fashion since the 
famous sabre-thrust of Mahmtid. Then there were 
numbers of Turkish women standing apart and look- 
ing like groups of masks, and the usual gathering 
like a stage chorus which makes up a Constanti- 
nople crowd. All the heads were thrown out in re- 
lief against the blue background of the Bosphorus, 
and every mouth at that moment was probably whis- 
pering the same thing. It was just then that rumors 
were beginning to be circulated about the extrava- 
gant doings of Abdul-Aziz. For some little time 
stories had been told of his insatiable greed for 
money. People would say to one another, ‘ Mah- 


288 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


mid had a passion for blood; Abdul-Mejid for 
women; Abdul-Aziz has for gold.” All those hopes 
built upon him when as prince imperial he felled 
an ox ata single blow, exclaiming, “Thus will 


’ had died out some _ time 


I destroy ignorance,’ 
before. The tastes he had evinced in the early 
years of his reign for a simple and severe mode 
of life, caring, as was said, for only one woman, 
and cutting down with an unsparing hand the 
enormous expenses of the Seraglio, were now but 
a distant memory. Probably it had been many 
years as well since he had finally abandoned those 
studies in legislation and military tactics and 
European literature about which he had made as 
much noise as though the entire regeneration of the 
empire was to be effected through them; now he 
thought only of himself, and hardly a day passed 
that some new anecdote was not set in circulation 
about his bursts of wrath against the minister of 
finance, who either would not or could not give him 
as much money as he demanded. At the least op- 
position he would hurl the first object on which he 
could lay his hands at his unfortunate Excellency, 
repeating from beginning to end and at the top of 
his voice the ancient formula of the imperial oath: 
‘By God, the Creator of heaven and earth, by the 
prophet Mohammed, by the seven variations of the 
Koran, by the hundred and twenty-four thousand 


prophets of God, by the soul of my grandfather 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 289 


and by the soul of my father, by my sons and by 
my sword! give me money or I will have your head 
stuck on the point of the highest minaret in Stam- 
bul.” And by one means or another he always suc- 
ceeded in getting what he wanted, sometimes gloat- 
ing over the money thus acquired like a common 
miser over his hoard, at others scattering it to the 
winds in the indulgence of all manner of puerile 
fancies. To-day he would take a sudden interest in 
lions, to-morrow in tigers, and agents would be de- 
spatched forthwith to India and Africa to purchase 
them for him; then for a whole month five hundred 
parrots stationed in the imperial gardens made them 
resound with one single word; then he was seized 
with a mania for collecting carriages, and for pianos, 
which he insisted upon having played supported 
upon the backs of four slaves; then he took to cock- 
fighting—would witness the combats with enthusi- 
astic interest, and himself fasten a medal around the 
neck of the victor, driving the vanquished into exile 
beyond the Bosphorus; then he had a passion for 
play, then for kiosks, then for pictures: it was as 
though the court had gone back to the days of the 
first Ibrahim. 

But with it all the unfortunate prince was 
unable to find peace; he was moody and _ taciturn, 
and only succeeded in alternating between utter 
weariness of soul and the most wretched state of 
apprehension. As though with an uneasy fore- 

Vor, I.—19 


290 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


boding of the tragic fate awaiting him, he would 
sometimes be possessed with the idea that he was 
going to be poisoned, and for a while, mistrusting 
every one about him, would refuse to eat anything 
but hard-boiled eggs. Then, again, he would be 
haunted by such a dread of fire that he would have 
everything in his apartments, made of wood, removed, 
to the very frames of the mirrors; it was even said 
that at these times he would read at night by the 
light of a candle placed in a basin of water. And yet, 
notwithstanding all these follies, which were supposed 
to have their origin in a cause of which there is no 
necessity to speak here, he preserved to the full the 
original strength of his indomitable will, and knew 
how to make himself both obeyed and feared by the 
most independent spirits around him. The only per- 
son who exerted any influence over him at all was 
his mother, a vain, foolish woman, who in the early 
years of his reign used to have the streets through 
which he must pass on his way to the mosque spread 
with brocaded carpets, which she would give away 
the following day to the slaves who were sent to take 
them up. 

In the midst of all the turmoil of his restless life 
Abdul-Aziz found time as well for the most trivial 
whims, such as the having a door painted after a 
particular design, combinations of certain fruits and 
flowers, and, after giving the most minute directions, 


would spend hours watching every stroke of the 


DOLMABAGHCIEH. 291 


artist’s brush, as though that were the main business 
of life. 

All these eccentricities, exaggerated—who knows 
to what extent ?—by the thousand tongues of the 
Seraglio, were in every one’s mouth; and _ possibly 
from that time on the threads of the conspiracy 
which two years later was to hurl him from the 
throne were woven more and more closely about the 
unhappy prince. According to the Mussulmans, his 
fall had already been determined upon and judgment 
passed upon him and upon his reign—a judgment which 
does not differ in any essential point from that appli- 
cable to any other one of the later sultans. Imperial 
princes, attracted toward a European civilization by a 
liberal but superficial education, their youthful imag- 
inations all on fire with dreams of reform and glory, 
before mounting the throne they indulge in visions 
of the great changes they are to bring about, and 
form resolutions, no doubt perfectly sincere at the 
time, to dedicate their entire lives to that end, lead- 
ing an existence of struggle and self-denial. Then 
they come to the throne, and after some years of 
ineffectual resistance, confronted by thousands of 
obstacles, hemmed in by customs and traditions, 
balked and opposed by men and things, appalled 
at the immensity of the undertaking, of which they 
had formed no true idea, they become discouraged, 
lapse into indolence, grow suspicious, and finally 


turn to pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence for that 


292 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


distraction which seems to be denied them in the 
successful carrying out of their designs, and, leading 
an utterly sensual life, lose little by little even the 
memory of their early ambitions, as well as the con- 
sciousness of their own deterioration. Thus it hap- 
pens that every new reign is ushered in with the 
most hopeful prognostications, and not without 
reason; only these are as invariably succeeded by 
disappointment. 

Abdul-Aziz did not keep us waiting: at the hour 
fixed there was a flourish of trumpets, the band 
struck up a warlike march, the soldiers’ presented 
arms, a company of lancers made their appearance 
suddenly in the gateway, and after them the Sultan 
on horseback, advancing slowly and followed by 
the members of his court. He passed so close in 
front of me that I had an excellent opportunity of 
examining his features attentively, and of finding 
how singularly incorrect was the picture I had 
formed of him in my mind. The “king of kings,” 
the prodigal, violent, capricious, imperious Sultan, 
then about forty-four years old, had the air of an 
extremely good-natured Turk who had found him- 
self a sultan without quite knowing why. He was 
stout and robust, with good features, large calm 
eyes, and a short, close-cut beard, already somewhat 
grizzled: his countenance was open and placid, his 
bearing easy, almost careless, and in his calm, in- 


different expression no trace of consciousness of the 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 293 


thousand eyes fixed upon him could be discovered. 
He rode a handsome gray horse with gold-mounted 
trappings, led by the bridle by two gorgeous grooms. 
The long distance at which the retinue followed 
would have pointed him out as the Sultan if nothing 
else had. He was very plainly dressed, wearing a 
simple fez, long dark coat buttoned close up under 
the chin, light trousers, and leather shoes. Advan- 
cing very slowly, he looked around on the spectators 
with an expression of mingled benevolence and 
weariness, as though saying, “ Ah, if you did but 
know how sick of it all I am!” The Mussulmans all 
bowed profoundly, and many Europeans raised their 
hats, but he took no notice of any one’s salutation. 
Passing in front of us, he gave a glance at a tall 
officer who saluted with his sword, another at the 
Bosphorus, and then a much longer look at two 
young English ladies who were watching him from 
a carriage, and who turned as red as cherries. I 
noticed that his hand was white and well formed: 
it was, by the way, the right hand, the same with 
which two years after he opened the vein in the 
bath. After him followed a crowd of pashas, 
courtiers, and prominent officials on horseback, for 
the most part sturdy, black-bearded men, simply 
dressed, and as silent, grave, and taciturn as though 
they were part of a funeral cortége: then came a 
group of grooms leading splendid-looking herses; 
then more officers, these on foot, their breasts 


294 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


covered with gold braid: when these last had passed 
the soldiers lowered their muskets, the crowd began 
to scatter over the square, and I found myself 
standing gazing at the summit of Mt. Bulgurla, 
revolving in my mind the extraordinary situation 
in which a sultan of Stambul must find himself now- 
a-days. 

He is, said I, a Mohammedan monarch, and his 
royal palace stands in the shadow of a Christian city, 
Pera, which towers above his head. He is an 
absolute sovereign, holding sway over one of the 
largest empires in the world, and yet here in his 
capital and not far away there live in those great 
palaces which overlook his Seraglio four or five 
ceremonious foreigners who lord it over him in his 
own house, and who in their intercourse with him 
conceal under the most respectful language a constant 
menace, which he acknowledges and fears. He has 
power over the life and property of millions of his 
subjects, and the means of gratifying every whim, 
no matter how extravagant, and yet could not, if he 
wanted to, alter the fashion of his own headgear. 
Surrounded by an army of courtiers and body-guards, 
who, if required, would kneel down and kiss his foot- 
prints, he stands in constant fear of his life and that 
of his sons. Absolute master of a thousand among 
the most beautiful women on earth, he alone among 
all Mussulmans in his dominions cannot bestow his 


hand in marriage upon a free woman, can only have 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 295 


sons of slaves, and is himself termed “the son of a 


slave” 


by the same people who call him “the 
shadow of God.” The sound of his name is feared 
and reverenced from the farthermost confines of 
Tartary to the uttermost bounds of Maghreb, and 
in his own capital there is an ever-increasing 
number of persons over whom he can claim neo 
shadow of control, and who laugh at him, his power, 
and his religion. Over the entire surface of his 
immense domain, among the most wretched tribes 
of the most distant provinces, in the most isolated 
mosques and monasteries of the wildest regions, 
fervent prayers are constantly ascending for his 
safety, health, and honor, and yet he cannot make 
a journey anywhere in his empire that he does not 
find himself surrounded by enemies who execrate 
his name and call down the vengeance of God upon 
his head. In the eyes of that part of the world 
which lies outside his palace-gates he is one of the 
most august and imposing monarchs upon earth; to 
those who wait at his elbow he seems the weakest, 
most pusillanimous, and wretched being that ever 
wore acrown. A resistless current of ideas, beliefs, 
and forces, all directly opposed to the traditions and 
spirit upon which his power rests, sweeps over him, 
transforming before his very eyes, underneath his 
feet, all about him, customs, habits, laws, the very 
men and objects themselves, without his assistance 


or consent. And there he is between Europe and 


296 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


Asia, in his huge palace washed by the sea-waves as 
though it were a ship ready to set sail, in the midst 
of an mextricable confusion of ideas and_ things, 
surrounded by fabulous luxury and misery unspeak- 
able, neither two nor one—no longer a real Mussul- 
man, nor yet a complete European; reigning over a 
people changed, though only in part, barbarians at 
heart, with a whitewash of civilization; two-faced 
like Janus; worshipped like a god, watched like a 
slave ; adored, deceived, beguiled, while every day 
that passes over his head extinguishes a ray of the 
halo that surrounds him and removes another stone 
from the pedestal upon which he stands. It seems 
to me, were I in his place, weary of such a condi- 
tion of things, satiated with pleasure, disgusted with 
adulation, and outdone with the constant surveillance 
and suspicion to which [ was subjected, I would lose 
all patience with a sovereignty so onerous and un- 
stable, a rule over conditions so hopelessly at war 
with themselves, and some time at night, when the 
entire Seraglio was buried in slumber, would jump 
in the Bosphorus like a fugitive galley-slave, and, 
swimming off to Galata, pass the hours till dawn in 
some mariners’ tavern, with a glass of beer and a 
clay pipe, shouting the Marseillaise in chorus. 

A half hour later the Sultan returned, driven 
rapidly by, this time in a closed carriage, followed 
by a number of officers on foot; and the show 


was over. [| think, on the whole, that what im- 


* 


a” oe, x 
opie 8 i ni eS aa pane 


U 









° t ae 
l tt shy iy to sit 
2a nr of i 
tif luxury. and: 
id 
~~ a ton * or < 
, : | COMME Enrop mean ; reigning ot OVEE 
he Os eae ~ es... _ 
: . sed, h only in part t, bi 
‘ _ » ‘n. - sy8 a 
ne ; of ¢ vilizatios 
. ua 
I A £0 
wiv gui 
: ta 
by ctr + : 
= q 
eis i nm 
' my 
rf. _ ’ 
arg a ’ 
- P e; = 
< 


i” , I ple sure 


eh = lier rd 
wn, piste VILGt LHe COnaTanI ick ae 


ni B 


ik akrey thi : ive reignty eQ) nies ron < ant et: 

: SA ae ' ie a 
the, over WHHenS a0 Sopseny . Wat 
be the at night, ene ney he 
slumber, wo — joni 


a $ aif 


e 











DOLMABAGHCHEH. 297 


pressed me most vividly was the sight of those of- 
ficers, attired in full dress, running and skipping 
after the imperial equipage like so many lackeys: I 
have never witnessed a similar prostitution of the 
military uniform. 

This spectacle of the state appearance of the Sul- 
tan is, as may be seen, a poor affair enough, very 
different from what it once was. Formerly the sul- 
tans only showed themselves in public surrounded 
by great pomp and display, preceded and followed 
by a gorgeous retinue of horsemen, slaves, guards 
of the gardens, chamberlains, and eunuchs, which 
when seen from a distance resembled, to use the 
simile of the enthusiastic chroniclers of the day, 
‘fa vast bed of tulips.” In these days the sultans 
seem to rather avoid all such display, as though it 
would be a piece of theatrical ostentation, represent- 
ing an order of things which no longer exists. I 
often asked myself what one of those early monarchs 
would say if, rising for a moment from his sepulchre 
in Brusa or tiirbeh in Stambul, he should behold one 
of his descendants of the nineteenth century pass 
by clad in a long black coat, without turban, sword, 
or jewels, and making his way through a crowd of 
insolent foreigners: probably he would grow red in 
the face with rage and shame, and, to show his ut- 
ter disdain, would treat him as Suleiman I. did 
Hassan—seize him by his beard and cut it off with 
his cimeter, than which no more poignant insult can 


298 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


be offered to an Osman. And, indeed, between the 
sultans of to-day and those whose names resounded 
like claps of thunder throughout Europe from the 
twelfth to the sixteenth century there is as much 
difference as between the Ottoman empire of our 
times and that of the early centuries. To their lot 
fell the youth, beauty, and vigor of the race; and 
they were not only the living representatives of 
their people, glorious examples, precious pearls in 
the sword of Islamism, but they constituted a dis- 
tinct force in themselves. The personal qualities of 
these powerful rulers formed one of the most potent 
factors in the marvellous growth of the Ottoman 
power during that period of its youth which covered 
the hundred and twenty-three years from Osman 
to Muhammad II. Truly, that was a succession of 
mighty princes, and, with a single exception, not 
only powerful, but, if you take into consideratioi 
the times in which they lived and conditions of their 
race, austere and wise as well, and deeply beloved 
by their people—frequently ferocious, but rarely un- 
just, and often kind and generous to their enemies. 
All of these, too, as prinees of such a race should 
be, were handsome and imposing in appearance, 
veritable lions, as their mothers termed them, at 
whose roar the whole earth trembled. The Abdul- 
Mejids, Abdul-Azizs, and Murads are but pale 
shadows of padishahs in comparison with those 


formidable youths, sons of fathers and mothers of 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 299 


eighteen and fifteen respectively, offspring of the 
flower of Tartar blood and bloom of Greek, Cau- 
casian, and Persian beauty. At fourteen they com- 
manded armies, governed provinces, and were pre- 
sented by their mothers with slaves as beautiful and 
ardent as themselves. Sons were born to them at 
sixteen as well as at seventy, and they retained their 
youthful vigor of mind and body to old age. Their 
spirit, said the poets, was of iron, their bodies were 
of steel. Certain features which they all possessed in 
common were lost later on by their degenerate de- 
scendants—high foreheads, with arched eyebrows 
meeting like those of the Persians; the blue eyes 
of the sons of the Steppes; a curved nose above 
crimson lips, ‘like the beak of a parrot over a 


7 and very thick black beards, which ex- 


cherry ;’ 
hausted the fertility of the Seraglio pocts to find 
mect comparisons for. They had the piercing 
glance of the eagle of Mt. Taurus and the endur- 
ance of the king of the desert; bull necks, enor- 
mously wide shoulders, expanding chests, ‘ capable 
of containing all the warlike ardor of their people ;” 
very long arms, huge muscles, short bowed legs, 
under whose grip the most powerful Turkomanian 
chargers would neigh with pain; and great shaggy 
hands, which tossed the bronze maces and mighty 
bows of the soldiery about as though they had been 
reeds. And their surnames fitted them well—wrest-_ 
ler, champion, thunderbolt, bone-grinder, blood- 


300 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


shedder. After Allah, war occupied the chief place 
in their thoughts, and death the least. Although 
they did not possess the genius of great command- 
ers, they were endowed with that power of prompt 
and quick action which almost takes its place, 
and a ferocious obstinacy which not infrequently 
accomplishes the same results. They swept like 
winged furies across the field of battle, the heron- 
quills fastened in their white turbans and the ample 
folds of their purple and gold-embroidered caftans 
showing from afar, as with savage cries they drove 
forward the decimated ranks of sciari whose ox-like 
nerves had at last given way under the demoralizing 
fire of Servian and German guns. They swam their 
horses across rivers whose waters were reddened 
with blood from their dripping cimeters; they would 
seize cowardly or panicstricken pashas by their 
throats, dragging them from the saddle in their 
headlong flight ; leap from their horses in a time of 
rout and plunge their jewelled daggers up to the 
hilt in the backs of the flying soldiers; and, mor- 
tally wounded, would conceal the hurt and mount 
upon some eminence on the battlefield that their jan- 
issaries might behold the countenance of their lord, 
pallid with death, but threatening and imperious to 
the last, until, finally sinking exhausted to the earth, 
they would roar with rage, maybe, but never with 
pain. What must the sensations have been of one 


of those gentle Persian or Circassian slaves, hardl 
£ ; x 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 301 


more than a child, when on the evening of a day of 
battle she beheld for the first time, in the door of 
her purple tent, under the subdued lamplight, the 
terrific apparition of one of those all-powerful sul- 
tans, drunk with victory and blood. But he could 
be tender and winning as well, and, gently taking 
the trembling little fingers in his mighty hands, 
still cramped from wielding the cimeter, search his 
imagination for pretty figures of speech to reassure 
his frightened slave, comparing her beauty to the 
flowers in his gardens, the jewels in his dagger, 
the most gorgeous birds in the forests, the most ex- 
quisite tints of a sunrise in Anatolia or Mesopotamia, 
until at last, taking courage, she would reply in the 
sane impassioned and fanciful language: ‘ Crown 
of my head! glory of my life! my beloved and 
mighty lord! may thy countenance ever shine with 
splendor on the two worlds of Africa and Europe! 
may victory follow wherever thy horse shall bear 
thee! may thy shadow extend over the whole earth! 
Would I were a rose to exhale sweetness in the folds 
of thy turban! a butterfly beating its wings against 
thy forehead!” And then, as her all-powerful lover 
reposed his mighty head upon her breast, she would 
recount childish tales of emerald palaces and moun- 
tains of gold, while all around the wild and savage 
soldiers of the army lay extended fast asleep upon 
the dark, bloodstained earth. All weakness, however, 


was left within the tent, from which these sultans came 


302 DOLMABAGHCHEH. 


forth more hardy and imperious than ever. They 
were tender in the harem, ferocious on the battle- 
field, humble in the mosque, and haughty on the 
throne. Their language was full of glowing hyper- 
boles and appalling threats ; any judgment once pro- 
nounced by them was irrevocable; the war was de- 
clared, the subject elevated to the pinnacle of 
greatness, the head of the victim rolled at the foot 
of the throne, or a tempest of fire and sword drove 
furiously across the face of a rebel province. Thus 
sweeping from Persia to the Danube, from Asia to 
Macedonia, in a continual succession of wars and 
triumphs, with intervals devoted to the pursuit of 
love and in hunting, to the flower of their youth 
there succeeded a maturity even more vigorous and 
ardent, followed by an old age of which their horses’ 
flanks, their sword-blades, or the hearts of their 
favorites could not have been conscious. And not in 
old age alone, but sometimes in the very flower and 
vigor of their youth, they would become over- 
powered with a sense of their position, dismayed 
in the very moment of victory and triumph by the 
tremendous responsibility resting upon them, and, 
seized with a sort of terror at the magnitude and 
loneliness of their own exalted state, would turn to 
God with all the force of their natures, passing days 
and nights in composing religious poetry in dim re- 
cesses of the palace-gardens, betaking themselves to 


the seashore to meditate by the hour upon the Koran, 


DOLMABAGHCHEH. 303 


joining the frantic dances of the dervishes, or re- 
ducing themselves with fasting and sackcloth in the 
company of some devout old hermit. In death as in 
life they furnished their people with examples either 
of fortitude or of majesty—whether dying with 
the serenity of a saint, like the founder of the dy- 
nasty ; or laden with years and glory and melancholy, 
like Orkhan; or by the hand of a traitor, like Mu- 
rad I.; or in the misery of exile, like Bayezid; or 
calmly conversing with a circle of poets and schol- 
ars, like the first Muhammad; or from the mortifica- 
tion of defeat, like the second Murad. And one may 
safely assert that there is nothing upon the blood-red 
horizon of Ottoman history which can compare with 
the threatening phantoms of these formidable rulers. 


END OF VOLUME I. 








~- 


oe a ae | mf 
ae thee ec cae 7 in , aan 





University of California 
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 e Box 951388 
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 


Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 























See a L UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
Fs AAMT 
000 473219 4 


( /\ 4 Eu, L?ti AA 





